


Flesh, Blood and Holy Water

by Taethor (orphan_account)



Series: Vulpes Inculta and Aurelia of Phoenix [3]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4, Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Abusive Parents, Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bad Parenting, Brotherhood of Steel - Freeform, Caesar's Legion, Canon-Typical Violence, Children, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Domestic Fluff, Domestic Violence, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Foul Language, Fucked Up, Growing Female Selfrespect, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Marriage, Mental Health Issues, Misogyny, Moody Vulpes Inculta, Mormonism, Past Domestic Violence, Past Infidelity, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Relationship(s), Psychopaths - Well - Caesar's Legion, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Sexism, Sexual Violence, Slave Trade, Slaves, Torture, Violence, abusive husband, imperium
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-12-06
Packaged: 2018-12-06 02:29:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 25,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11591070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Taethor
Summary: The news of the Legion's assault and occupation on former NCR-lands reaches Washington DC and Elder Maxson. Things are stirring in the West and East, and with Vulpes Inculta as Caesar, it is bound to be anything but peaceful.Returning to a false domestic bliss in Flagstaff, Aurelia can't escape the tidal waves moving in with a ruthless force and the Burned Man bides his time in the canyons of Utah.This is the continuation and third part of my Aurelia-series. Before reading this piece, read 'Poison Ivy' and 'Novum Imperium' - otherwise I'm afraid the story wont make much sense.





	1. The western sun

_The Citadel, Washington DC_  
Arthur scratched his beard as he sat frowning at the large metal table in the western conference room in the Citadel. Things had calmed down in DC after the Lone Wanderer had helped the Brotherhood to clean up and produce clean water, but rumors from both the West and East were starting to worry Arthur and the other elders more and more for each day. The Institute in the East needed to be taken care of, but also the fast expanding Legion in the West. The Legion, an organization of murderous maniacs clad like ancient roman soldiers, building their empire on slaves and primitive warfare. 

“Elder Maxson, if I may”, a scribe from Arthurs own team piped up from where she stood right beside Paladin Danse. Arthur nodded towards the young woman and gesticulated for her to go on – she cleared her throat and cast a worried glance at Danse, before speaking up, “Rumors say that the Legion has had a change in leadership and our western brothers and sisters have not been in contact with us for over two months. Perhaps we should try to seek them out-”  
“Scribe Haylen”, Danse interrupted her with a deep frown before he looked back at Arthur. “It has already been decided that our team is heading out east to search for Brandis and the others. We can’t spare people for a large enough presence in the east and west at the same time”  
“Paladin Danse is right”, Arthur nodded and sighed as he stretched his aching back out. He wasn’t made for bureaucratic work and even though he was only a few years over 20, he could feel his body starting to ache from the lethargic pace of spending his days behind a desk. “We decided to head east, but the reports, or rather the lack of reports from the western branch is worrying… to say the least”, Maxson leaned back into his chair when the door to his side burst open and a knight marched in with hurry. 

“Elder, I’m so sorry for disturbing you”, the knight gasped as if she’d been running through the entire citadel in a haste.  
“Yes?” Maxson barked with some annoyance.  
“A vertibird just radioed in, during a patrol in the western parts of DC, they came upon a western scribe”, the knight was still catching her breath but spoke as fast as she could while standing in salute. “She’s been identified as a Veronica Santangelo from the former Californian branch” 

Veronica had wandered for weeks, months – it felt like. From California, through the Mojave, constantly trying to avoid the legionaries controlling the entire area now stretching from California all through the west reaching as far as Kansas and Nebraska. Cass… Well, Veronica had no idea what had become of Cass after the legion slavers had captured them. They had taken Cass away and ever since, she hadn’t seen her and when a moment presented itself to her with the chance of an escape, she had to take it.  
Whoever Six was, had been or now had become, Veronica didn’t want to stay a minute longer than she had to. For the short time she had known Six, Veronica had been naïve – she had immediately trusted her as a friend – without any thought of Six being something else than a poor courier for the Mojave Express getting caught up in a war. How wrong she had been, Veronica sighed to herself as she looked down at the ruins of Washington DC from the vertibird bringing her closer and closer to the Brotherhood of Steel’s headquarters. She still couldn’t decide whether Six was insane of just suffering from a unthinkable amount of Stockholm syndrome, deciding to stay with that damned maniac that had kept her locked up like a slave and impregnated her.  
It was true, Veronica didn’t know much, and she wished she could have learned more. But what she now knew, was that Six – or Aurelia as she was known within the Legion, was married to the dreaded Vulpes Inculta, a tyrant and one of the most devilish men she’d had the misfortune to ever meet in person. 

At first, Veronica had been fooled by his exceptional gift to act as another person when incognito, as had Cass. Cass had told her about the first time she had encountered Six with what she then thought an utterly handsome stranger. Little did she know who he was then, and he had been a complete gentleman. Vulpes Inculta, Veronica learned, could be charming and charismatic when he needed to, but deep down, below all the facades and the fancy clothes, were a feral animal – not even worthy of being called a man. An animal who rejoiced in torture and in the pain of others, who punished his _wife_ by raping her, beating her and humiliating her. When they had tried to rescue Six from the Fort, she’d been kept like a finer slave, still with marks from whips and beatings even though she was clearly pregnant.  
And Six had panicked. She had screamed at them all, cursed them and then as soon as they reached land, she had bolted. Veronica hadn’t known what to do, or even what to think. Did she truly love that monster? No, Six couldn’t possibly love him. It had to be fear – Vulpes Inculta thrived on fear. It was how he worked. And now, now he was Caesar, after an all too successful coup after the old Caesar’s death – and he had taken Shady Sands. The last of the NCR had fled from California, but from what Veronica knew, most of them had either fallen during the assault on the city – or had been executed shortly after if not enslaved. A third of what was once the United States, now belonged to a homicidal maniac who treated humans like garbage and who, even more horrifyingly, was intelligent and cunning – knew exactly how to play people and act like a professional when needed to. 

As soon as the vertibird touched ground in the large courtyard of the citadel, Veronica sighed a breath of relief, but at the same time, her body tensed up at the actual realization she was back with the Brotherhood – but not _her_ Brotherhood. She was at the Eastern Headquarters, the only main HQ that remained within the organization seeing as the Californian branch had been torn apart completely, first by infighting and then by the Legion.  
She was lead inside into one of the large buildings that was the Citadel and taken through several long dark corridors, up and down stairs until she and her escort finally arrived inside a large conference room. There, she was met with the sight of several scribes, paladins and knights – as well as a young bearded man with a heinous scar on his right chin. The scar from a fight with a deathclaw.  
Elder Maxson. 

“Elder, this is the scribe from the secret base in the Mojave, Veronica Santangelo”, one of the knights that had escorted her said and she looked up to meet Maxson’s light blue eyes examining her.  
He didn’t rise from his chair and simply nodded before turning his eyes away from her and nodding towards one of the paladins.  
“Scribe Santangelo, you will subject yourself to interviews with my staff”, Maxson said in a stern voice without looking up at her, but instead scribbling something on paper and grunting as he readjusted his position in the metal chair. “Tell them everything you know about the western situation, as well as this ‘Legion’ and their assaults on the former NCR territory of California. It is of utmost importance that you give us as much detail as possible, considering our suspicions of the fates of our branches out west”  
“Yes, Elder”, Veronica said with a nod.  
“Follow Paladin Danse, he will show you to the medical bay were you will be subject to a medical exam and then taken to were you will stay”, Maxson continued. Veronica stayed silent and Maxson looked up at her with his blue but still steely eyes that looked much older than his actual age. “That will be all, scribe”  
“Of course, Elder”, Veronica blurted out and straightened her back. “Ad Victoriam”  
“Ad Victoriam”, Maxson answered with a slight drawl and looked back down into his papers and the large Paladin stood before her within seconds. Paladin Danse was a large and tall man, but with kind warm hazel eyes and he gestured for her to start walking and he followed in her heels, leading her out again through the darkened corridors.

***

_Flagstaff, Arizona_  
The heat lay with a heavy dryness in the still air and the mountains surrounding the city did little to shade its inhabitants from the scorching sun that stood high during the midday. Fortunately in the planted gardens of the large stone villa that was the residence of Caesar, shade was common and planned to follow the sun’s movements during the light of day. The broad terrace perked with vegetation and flowers in all kinds of colors and even the grass below was soft and deeply green which gave a strange contrast to the red-bleached mountains shooting up from the ground and framing the city’s landscape. The villa was situated far up the western hill of Flagstaff were most of the officer’s had their homes – it was the first time that Aurelia had lived here, even though Vulpes had told her that during her absence from him, he’d had a villa here. But he’d never visited it either.  
Now, that California lay under Legion control, they had been able to return to Flagstaff and with Vulpes, Aurelia followed for the first time in almost ten years. She couldn’t remember anything about the city and when they arrived, it was for her as if she was seeing everything for the first time. Vulpes had told her about the small bungalow they lived in when they had first married, across the town from the large villa that they resided in now and he had showed her the city center with the large medical center, the government buildings and the large markets and arenas that had been built in their absence. During the former Caesar’s war-efforts, Flagstaff had grown into one of the largest cities in the wasteland – almost as grand in its features as Shady Sands, but without the large commercial center. It was a beautiful city, filled with flowers and plants, planted trees that were being kept green despite the hot environment and the dry deserts that surrounded them.

In her garden, Aurelia found all kinds of vegetables and fruits and as she sat in the protective shade on the terrace, she sipped cool, tart lemonade and watched as Atticus chased his little brother Ferox around on the grass. The laughter coming from them both made her smile to herself as she put her feet up on the stone railing surrounding the terrace, letting them get just a touch of the hot sun.  
The slave who had it as her responsibility to care for Atticus and Ferox sat on the grass and watched the boys play, at times shouting at them to ease down before they hurt themselves. Though, her shouting gained little acknowledgement from the children and Aurelia couldn’t do anything but shrug it off. It was a nice, sunny and warm day and they were children – and she was home. Home, _with her children_. 

Steps approached her from behind and she turned her head slightly to get a look at who was approaching her. She met the light grey eyes of her husband and by the frown on his face, she could fast understand that he was stressed about something. Though, they seldom spoke about the things that put strain on him – not that he wouldn’t talk to her about it, should she ask – she simply didn’t ask. She knew his patterns, she knew when he was calm and collected, but she also knew when he wasn’t and when he disappeared from their home and came back three or four days later, relieved and stoic.  
It was a blessing, she thought, that she only had to hear from the slaves about his rampages during one of his maniacal fits. She had seen what he could and would do, even though he’d promised her that he’d never hurt her during one of his episodes, she still couldn’t help to fear him when it was time for that again. Because he had hurt her, he had almost killed her once, when her insides ruptured due to him anally raping her as punishment for something she did not remember. She still bore the scars from that, though her bowels now worked normally again. Aurelia bore many scars, not all of them from Vulpes, but a majority of them, was given to her – by him. But still, she couldn’t help the love she felt for him as she reached out her hand for him to grasp as he neared her on the terrace. At the sight of his two sons playing, he chuckled slightly with a small smirk on his lips, though his eyes remained serious and the wrinkle between his eyebrows didn’t ease. 

“This is lovely, isn’t it?” Aurelia said as she looked out over the garden and the rippling sound of children’s laughter travelled through the air around them.  
“Yes”, Vulpes nodded. 

“Father!” Came a shout from Atticus who had noticed Vulpes’ presence and the small boy, who wasn’t so very small any more came jogging up to his father and hugged him around his waist. Vulpes' chuckled and ran his fingers through the boy’s dark brown hair that rested in a side-drawn fringe over his forehead. “Please father, will you spar with me this afternoon? I’ve almost learnt the difficult attack-movements now”  
“Really?” Vulpes smirked and looked down on his son, “Almost, is it? We’ll have to see about that, won’t we?”  
“Please, please, please! It won’t take long, I promise. Just a short spar?” Atticus beamed up against Vulpes, trying to convince him by eying him as a puppy.  
“Atticus, your father has a lot to do”, Aurelia warned her eldest son and reached out to correct his tunic that had become somewhat wrinkled during his escapades in the garden with his little brother.  
“I guess”, Atticus said with some feigned disappointment, looking up at Vulpes again.  
“Perhaps I could find some time”, Vulpes sighed with a small smile on his lips and stroked the boy’s hair.  
“Aw, yes!” Atticus beamed and then turned and ran back down the terrace and joined his little brother again by snaring Ferox by his shin with a foot, making the younger boy loose his balance at which Atticus laughed loudly.  
“Hey!” Aurelia shouted from the terrace and Atticus looked up with a wolfish grin that he most definitely had inherited from his father. Otherwise, Atticus was a picture of Aurelia, with all her features. Thankfully, not much of Aurelius had been passed down on the boy, and Ferox, he was very much Vulpes in almost every way. 

“He’s doing well”, Vulpes said in a low calm voice as he sat down next to Aurelia and leaned back into the broad wooden couch. “There’s no need to apprehend him for getting in a sneak attack on his brother”  
“Don’t turn my children into beasts before they’ve even hit adolescence”, Aurelia retorted with a tartness almost equal to the lemonade she was sipping. Vulpes looked at her and smirked, letting one of his hands curl into her long, thick hair that was put up in a large due of braids and curls.  
“They’ve got blood from me and from your father, do you expect them to become docile?”  
“Not at all, my love”, Aurelia answered and ran a finger over the damp glass she was holding, “But let them be children while they can. It’s enough that Atticus has spent his first years completely under the guidance of those horrid priestesses and tutors. I want him to have some kind of a loving childhood as well”  
Vulpes hummed and nodded, “I suppose I can’t deny my sons anything. Nor my wife, it seems. Perhaps I’m becoming weak with age”  
“I very much doubt that”, Aurelia snorted – in humor or in actual horror, she couldn’t tell. If it was one thing Vulpes was not and never had been, it was weak. He was unpredictable and cunning in his ways, and always had a manipulative streak to him, which made it difficult to know what he really intended with his words. It was like constantly treading upon hot coals – balancing every word and making sure never to go too far in provocation. Mainly for the children’s sake. When it was only the two of them, when they travelled or when the boys were in school with the priestesses and their tutors, Aurelia could be harsher in her wording towards Vulpes. He even enjoyed her wits and her somewhat feisty nature at times. But it was always an act of balance – to know when it was too much and stave the urge to further provoke. Most of the time, he lashed out without warning at the most base things, not the actual provocations – and that, scared Aurelia.  
Vulpes smiled one of his few genuine smiles and leaned in and kissed her softly but fiercely. “Good”, he simply replied before turning his eyes back out on the garden and their children again. “It’s good you do not doubt, my love. I would never forgive that”  
Aurelia didn’t answer, simply kept sipping her lemonade and tried to find some comfort in Vulpes’ twirling fingers that ran in circles down her neck, as she too looked out over the playing boys in the garden.

***

  
There was a girl with dark eyes and hair shining black  
And it ran like a river, wild down her back  
But these empty streets, and the air shaking with heat  
They made me hungry, hungry to do something mean  
**  
**  
Gold – The Handsome Family  



	2. An invite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, how do I imagine Vulpes in this series? If you happen to be curious, the artist Belfezon made a close to perfect picture that satisfied all my needs for Vulpes. A bit homoeroticism, when it's at its best, and **VERY NSFW**. Have a look, if you wish:    
>  http://pictures.hentai-foundry.com/b/Belfezon/512421/Belfezon-512421-Welcome_to_Legion_chick.jpg

_Flagstaff_  
The mornings were always hot and dry in Arizona, especially this time of year and as Vulpes woke up in his bed with Aurelia sleeping quietly beside him, with her back turned towards him – he allowed himself to stretch his body, making it as long as he possibly could while yawning lazily to himself. These kind of mornings were becoming commonplace for them both, waking up to the crisp sunlight and hearing the voices from their sons as the slaves helped with preparing breakfast.  
The sight of Aurelia sleeping beside him was a beautiful one, but at the same time it made him uneasy. Her sculptured body and the light skin almost disappeared into the white sheets and only the contrast from her long, almost black hair reminded him that it was actually her. She was at his side, and had been since they’d taken New Vegas. But she hadn’t been the Aurelia he fell in love with, since she ran away. In the physical way, it was surely her – but her mind, as scrambled and dualistic as it had been before, the bullets she’d taken to her temple, had made it even worse and even though he seldom thought much about it these days, it had changed her. In some ways, the changes to her person had made her even more attractive, but in others – she was less. Vulpes wasn’t entirely sure the love he harbored for his wife was normal, in any kind of way – it certainly wasn’t anything like the love one could read about in those horrific and completely depraved pre-war books that he suspected was written by feeble bored women. _Romance_ , he didn’t even want to begin to think about it. Aurelia certainly had never asked for anything even remotely like what Vulpes thought romance actually was – it simply didn’t exist within the culture of the Legion – to woo someone. You took whatever you wished for, and Vulpes, had almost always been in a station to simply take what he wanted. And if he couldn’t take, he was simply given. 

Vulpes let one of his hands stroke down the curves of Aurelia’s pale skin, over her resting arm and down her round hips that pointed up in a luscious curve and melting down into her fleshy thighs. She had gained weight again and looked as healthy as ever and the feel of her soft silken skin made his own body react. She whimpered silently to his touch and drew a deep breath in her sleep as his hand travelled up to her chest, softly cupping one breast as he slid closer to her. She answered his advances by pressing her ass against his now hardened crotch and he knew she had woken. He pressed soft kisses along her neck and shoulder as he kneaded her breasts and pressed himself against her, his cock straining against her ass as he jerked between the rounded cheeks. A soft moan from her had him pull her legs back and over his hip, so that he could enter her wet and already aroused sex with ease.  
As he buried himself within her, he buried his head in her thick long curls and cradled her around her waist with his arms. Her body still warm and soft from sleep molded into his with perfection and it didn’t take long before she was on her stomach, with Vulpes over her, erratically thrusting inside her until he found his release with heavy and deep snaps of his hips. 

Aurelia moaned as he exited her and lay on his back beside her, “Do you have plans for today?” she asked in a soft voice as she yawned into her pillow.  
“We’re planning the move on the east, so I have several strategic meetings with the legates, officers and centurions today and probably the whole week”, said Vulpes in a raspy voice from the post-coital activities.  
“Do we have enough soldiers close by to even accommodate such a move?” Aurelia turned to her side and watched her husband as he lay naked and somewhat flustered, still catching his breath as his sweat glistening chest moved up and down.  
“We do”, Vulpes smirked. “We have the largest army on the continent as far as I know – considering we’re the largest federation in the wasteland – and the others, calling themselves _democracies_ ”, Vulpes snorted without humor, “I’d like to see them try to move against us”  
“You can’t blame them for trying. You’re a tyrant”, Aurelia said and kissed Vulpes chest as she inched closer to him.  
“A tyrant, hm?” Vulpes smirked, “A just and righteous imperator, I’d say”  
“In our eyes, yes”, Aurelia answered as she leaned her head against his chest, listening to his rapid heartbeat. “But you know as well as I, that others doesn’t view us as such”  
Vulpes hummed, “They’re profligates Aurelia, their culture is vastly different from our and our superiority is only another proof that their ways as depraved and need to be forsaken and erased”  
“You know”, Aurelia said in a somewhat troubled voice, “When I’d lost my memory and before I realized I was a citizen of the Legion, all I ever heard about us was that we were monsters – that all women were slaves and that our children was taken from us the day they were born. That our cities were nothing but sand and stone, with suffering slaves and barbarians”  
“I remember seeing the propaganda poster that the NCR had of you”, Aurelia continued and she looked up to meet Vulpes amused eyes and a smirk on his lips, “And the ones of Lanius and the Legion at large. It said you were megalomaniacal monsters, more evil than what they describe as their ‘devils’”  
“And yet, we lay here”, Vulpes murmured softly, “In a thriving city, in the middle of a thriving empire without raiders, with functioning trade routes and a currency worth more than any other currency in the wasteland”  
Aurelia smiled softly and Vulpes curled his fingers in her hair, “Do you regret not escaping me for good?” Vulpes asked after a moment of silence.  
“You’d find me”, Aurelia answered.  
“Yes”, he answered. He would always find her. She could run to the end of the world and he would still find her – he had promised her as much, but still, she hadn’t tried running all too far. Two years, he was without her – and he did find her eventually. He would find her again if he had to.  
“You’ve destroyed me”, Aurelia then said in a silent voice. “I’ve given you three children, two who’re still breathing and growing. You’ve given me more scars than anyone else, but still – I cannot bring myself to hate you”  
Vulpes remained silent and looked up into the ceiling as his fingers stroked her neck and twinned her hair.  
“You’ve taken my freedom, again and again. But still, whenever I am too far away from you. I need you, I long for you. For the false sense of safety that you provide. It’s sick, isn’t it? And inbetween all of this, we’re raising our children to become just as we are”  
“It’s our culture, Aurelia. And you’re not without freedom”, Vulpes remarked and took a deep breath. “You’re free to leave, if you wish”  
“But you’ll hunt me down”  
“I will” 

Aurelia let out a depressed chuckle as she looked into Vulpes eyes, and then she bit him hard in his upper arm. As by reflex, he swatted her over the face and was above her within seconds, pressing against her and ravishing her mouth with his own.  
“You’re mine, lupa”, Vulpes hissed into her ear as he sank his teeth into her neck. “Mine. My slave, my whore, my _wife_ ”

***

During and after the siege of Shady Sands four years prior, Six had feared for her life. Vulpes knew everything, about her affair with Picus, about what they had done when they were alone. Vulpes had had spies all over Shady Sands, even some that Picus didn’t know about and that had witnessed and reported what they saw to the new imperator, the new Caesar.

The sight of Picus being dragged out, limp and bloody, raped until his insides were turned out and the deep gashes in his flesh collected the grainy dust from the ground, was horrible. Six had seen her fair share of horrors in her life, as the wife of a Legion officer, it was impossible not to have witnessed the gore that followed such a violent cult and organization. Just the life one led in the wasteland was gory and filled with blood, tears and suffering. A life wasn’t worth anything and people were killed over less than a handful caps, or a bottle of dirty water.  
As Six looked out the window from General Lee Oliver’s former office with Vulpes standing behind her, holding her around her waist, she could see dozens upon dozens of lampposts, crosses and other makeshift-poles used to crucify the captured NCR officers and traitors to the Legion. Among them were Picus who was being dragged to a lamppost were a female body hanged, limp and recently dead. It was Nancy Oliver, the wife of General Lee Oliver and Picus’ mistress. The General had been crucified just a couple of feet away, but was still alive by the looks of it.  
A recruit put a snare around Picus’ neck and a centurion seemed to be shouting something, before the rope of the snare was thrown up in the air and around the top of the lamppost. 

Aurelia tried to hold the tears back, but her throat closed in sorrow and disgust as she watched Picus slowly being raised up from the ground by the snare – and the slow, excruciating fight against death began as he choked on the snare, strung up around the top of the lamppost, beside the already dead Nancy. His tattered body struggled for a long time, too long a time – but Six knew it was planned for in every detail, by the man standing behind her and holding her. This was her punishment. Picus was simply a pawn and if she hadn’t known Vulpes as well as she did, she would have thought hanging Picus’ punishment – but it wasn’t. Picus was a good frumentarius and a loyal such, apart from the fact that he had bedded his superiors wife, but if Vulpes could have, he would have spared him and made use of his talents. But it was too simple – and it would suggest that she, that Aurelia of Phoenix, wife of imperator Vulpes Inculta – Caesar of the Legion and conqueror of 157 tribes, could get away with disobeying her husband.  
And that, she couldn’t. 

Right there, the words from when Vulpes had spoken to her the time she had met him in Nipton rang through her head as she watched Picus body struggle to stay alive. _I want you to witness the fate of the town of Nipton, to memorize every detail_.  
At first, she hadn’t realized who he was, or even remembered her connection to him – but this was how he worked, this was how Vulpes punished, he branded atrocities into ones mind. To be forced to watch and witness, was much more effective than being put through something physical. Wounds healed, sure, they left scars, but you got used to the scars. What you didn’t get used to, was nightmares – having to relive what you’ve witnessed, over and over, for the rest of your life – knowing, it was all your own fault. 

“Look pupa”, Vulpes had almost cooed from behind her. “Do you see my love? I couldn’t possibly do that to you. You’d die and that just wouldn’t be fair to you, Ferox, Atticus…Or me”  
It was then, that a tear finally fell down her cheek, since her traitorous body couldn’t hold it in anymore, couldn’t hold her devastation back any longer.  
“Yes, Vulpes”, she answered silently, “I can see”. 

After that, for a long time, Six felt completely broken. The last fling of hope left her when Aurelius was released from prison and reinstated as centurion of his centuria. Picus had died, but her disgusting father got to live – Vulpes had made his choice, and it was a practical one – but he didn’t apologize for it. Vulpes never apologized for anything, he didn’t have to.  
The legionaries moved in and transformed Shady Sands to an operational province of the Legion and Vulpes put Dead Sea in charge of the entire former New California Republic, so that he could return to Flagstaff with Six in tow, to rule the entire empire from there. There was already talk of starting to move east, towards the east coast and since the fall of Hoover Dam, the Legion had conquered another 70 or so tribes. Their armies were huge, it was a war machine – almost equal in percentage to the actual roman empire of olds and Vulpes ruled it all.

***

Vulpes sat in his large office in the large castle-like political headquarter in Flagstaff and fingered the letter he had received just a few minutes past. It was from the east, from the Brotherhood of Steel on the eastern coast. He could feel some excitement at the possibility of putting them under the Legion as well, though he knew from scouts and information, that the Brotherhood based in DC had beaten back the Enclave and rid the entire DC-area of raiders and other scum. They were also the largest branch of the organization still surviving in the wasteland and as far as he could tell, the Legion’s largest threat so far. There were rumors of a covert organization in the Commonwealth called the ‘Institute’, but just like everyone else, the Legion’s leaders knew very little about that particular organization.  
The letter was written in English and addressed to the Emperor of the Legion, Caesar Vulpes Inculta. Vulpes snorted with some disgust at the pretense of formality over this invitation of ‘Peace talks’, that the Brotherhood called it.

Prime Elder, Arthur Maxson of the Brotherhood of Steel invites the Emperor, Vulpes Inculta of the Legion, with Legion dignitaries to a meeting of Peace talks in Washington DC, on August 23rd 2286.   
Safe passage and conduct during the Peace talks are guaranteed, no armed guards are allowed on the neutral ship were the meetings are held. Kindly reply at least a month in advance so that transport by vertibird may be properly arranged from all the different locations to Washington DC.  
Prime Elder, Arthur Maxson

_Peace talks_ , Vulpes chuckled to himself as he put the paper down and waved for one of the guards to come.  
“Bring me the legates”, Vulpes said, still with a smirk on his face and the guard saluted him in the usual roman style and then left to fetch Lucius and Alerio. Lucius had taken Lanius position as Primus Legate after the coup and the former Caesar’s death and Alerio was also a Legate, but didn’t have the same responsibilities as Lucius. The Legion Empire was divided into federal provinces with appointed Legates ruling the provinces in Caesar’s stead. Arizona, being the capital province and the home of the Caesar, therefore had two Legates, one prime Legate and one second. Lucius was still also the head of the Pretorian Guard and Alerio had risen to become and take over the Frumentarii after Vulpes' decent to imperator. 

Lucius and Alerio arrived a short while later and sat down by the large desk in Vulpes office, and read through the letter that had been sent from the Prime Elder. Vulpes wasn’t the only one laughing when having finished the letter. It was ridiculous, in its entirety.  
“Counting all of our provinces, how many legionaries do we have?” Vulpes asked when the laughter had faded and the three men gathered had been able to collect themselves from the humorous invite.  
“We have eight legions, Lord Imperator”, Alerio answered. “Or, more likely, seven and a half, counting our two Arizonian legions have yet to mend from the movements and reassigning from Shady Sands”  
“So we have, round about 40 000 legionaries within the entire empire”, Vulpes said. It sounded like a question, but was more in the likes of a statement and he fell silent for a moment. “The Brotherhood of Steel with their technology is our greatest threat, aside from the Independent States of the South and Texas. Do we have any knowledge as to how many soldiers the Independent States have all together?”  
“Round about 20 000, I believe. Their military efforts have been minor and they’ve focused more on trade to keep the peace, and allying with neighboring small states”, Lucius answered and leaned back into his chair.  
Vulpes hummed and took a sip from the glass of red wine that stood on the desk before him.  
“We lay low for now”, Vulpes finally said. “I’m not turning myself in to an easy target for those technological fetishists to assassinate the second I step into those fucking ‘Peace talks’”  
“It’s beneath us”, Alerio agreed. “I say, if they so wish to talk, they can come to us”  
“Yes. Perhaps we could send them a counter offer. The Legion hasn’t held any diplomatic meetings as of yet. Perhaps it would be good for the other countries dignitaries to witness the Legion’s thriving cities for themselves”  
“Indeed”, Lucius answered with a crooked smirk. 

“Also, I have news from Legate Salt-Upon-Wounds, it seems he’s been able to locate Joshua Graham once more”, Alerio said and Vulpes leaned back into his chair with a satisfied look in his eyes.  
“Good, leave me the report”, Vulpes said before saluting for the legates to make their leave.

***


	3. Strange dark night

_Navajo Lake, Utah_  
Salt-Upon-Wounds had been on their heels for weeks, word had it, that the chieftain that allied his tribe without force with the Legion had been made a legate by the new Caesar, but Joshua couldn’t be certain. He and the few people who followed him that could walk and handle the rough terrain of the desert had left the Angel cave, trying to stay one step ahead of the legion-tribals. It wasn’t safe for Joshua if he stayed in the cave and it wasn’t save for those who could not leave if he stayed, so with White Chalk and Daniel as main company and a few other battle-ready tribals, Joshua wandered Zion and hid away, leaving as few traces behind as possible.  
The travelling merchants that came from Nevada and other Legion-controlled lands, but remained loyal to the former Legate, told him of Vulpes Inculta’s victory against the NCR and how it was rumored the Legion planned on moving further east. Joshua thought with horror over the empire that Inculta now had at his feet. He knew Inculta, had known him since he was but a boy and was taken from his home tribe in Utah to join the Legion’s ranks as a child soldier. Joshua himself had been the one who took him from his home, gave the orders on the slaughter of his whole tribe. It was Joshua, that had saved him over ten years past, when the centurion almost whipped him to death in the Flagstaff arena. But Joshua also knew Vulpes’ person, as appose to Legate Lanius, Vulpes was truly dangerous. Lanius had been a man of strength. The former legate knew little of the Monster of the East, but he knew that the large man was merely violent, but not a great tactician and not what other would describe as very intellectual or even interested in knowledge apart from how to use his sword in the most efficient ways. Vulpes, however, was a whole ’nother story – his entire work and training since he was a decanus had been solely focused around gathering information, spying and covert warfare. He was trained to use unconventional methods and was well read. If one wanted the Legion to succeed, Vulpes would be the right choice as a leader. He wouldn’t, however, be the right choice if one was apposed to the harsh methods of war and enslavement the Legion used to conquer their lands. Vulpes, Joshua thought, was a henchman – an enforcer. A man who if he had a conscience at all, pushed it so far back within himself that he never let his actions bother him. To Joshua, Vulpes might help the wasteland flourish, but he could also be its demise. With Edward, the now dead former Caesar, it had been quite simple. He lived after a simple ideology and never really planned for the Legion to grow as it did – it more or less just happened, much with the help of Joshua himself. He supposed that was why he had taken and then more or less sponsored Vulpes in his youth, because Joshua saw so much of himself in the young man. A brilliant mind, but with a vastly halting emotional span and a sickness that grew inside him. A sadistic streak that the Legion sorely needed and later depended upon in their warfare against the tribes of the wasteland. 

Joshua sat by the water’s edge, looking out over the Navajo lake and contemplated what to do next. It wasn’t his time, not yet. It would surely come, if not sooner than later. He was growing old. Him and Lucius was born the same year and if Joshua had had any hair left on his body, it would have turned grey by now. But he knew, from what the Lord told him in his dreams, that it wasn’t his time as of yet. He still had things to do, still had things to amend for – people he had wronged and needed to do right by, before he met his Maker. He stroked the denture of the carved in Greek letters on his 45., _A Light Shining in Darkness_ , _καὶ τὸ φῶς ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ φαίνει_ on the right side and _καὶ ἡ σκοτία αὐτὸ οὐ κατέλαβεν_ , on the left – and he thought of Aurelia. She had escaped, several years back. Just after the first battle of Hoover Dam, shortly after Joshua himself had defied death and survived flames licking his body and the fall down the deep canyon. She had sought him out, at first not believing the rumors about a burned man wandering the deserts of Zion – and then, she had found him. Now, the merchant had told him, she was back with her husband and had been since the Legion’s victory of the second battle of Hoover Dam. They had children, Joshua knew, and as much as Aurelia probably despised Vulpes deep inside, she was born and breed within the Legion culture and to her, abandoning her children would mean an afterlife filled with torture and horrors, worse than those of this world. Her children, Joshua thought, must be the only reason she came back to him. A creature such as Aurelia, would not allow herself to be held where she did not want to be for long, unless she had reasons to stay and the fruits of her own loins, no matter half of them being those of her tormentor and the maniacal husband she was bound to for eternity, didn’t matter much.  
The thought of Aurelia pained him as he sat there, watching the sun slowly sink behind the high rocks framing the landscape of the national park. Last he saw her, was at the tri-state junction, where he had left her seven years prior. She was going to Reno, for whatever reason and she wouldn’t, _couldn’t_ , she said, stay in Zion with him. And he loved her, perhaps like a daughter, perhaps like something else entirely – but it was unworthy of him – he had always been unworthy of her. An old man, before completely high on his own might and power, now too old to even remember how she really looked. He could imagine her long, curling dark brown hair and her curvaceous silhouette in the early dawn of the morning, but he couldn’t remember her voice. He couldn’t force his memory to imagine her before him, all he could see was her silhouette, in those rough dark denims with her 300. Magnum strapped to her right thigh, her Stetson holding her curls from flying in the soft winds coming down from the mountains and the dust getting caught in her strands of hair. _Like a daughter_ , Joshua thought to himself. He had daughters, and sons – but he knew none of them. He had never claimed any of them and the women he had had, he never officially married any of them. His children, his biological children were the aftermaths of rape – of warfare. They were the result of conquests and now, as well as then, he didn’t deserve to call himself a father. He had never even began to be something even remotely close to that in his life, except to Vulpes – and then the girl that Vulpes has taken as his own. Taught how to, by Joshua himself. 

_It’s our culture_ , Joshua had said during one of Vulpes’ first raids as a young man. He couldn’t have been older than thirteen at the time. _It’s how you separate the weak from the strong, break down their morals and humiliate them into submission. A man takes what he wishes, never asks_. Vulpes raped his first woman when he was thirteen, with the eyes of the Malpais Legate overseeing him, with a stoic but controlled gaze. How many women had he himself destroyed? He had no idea. He had been a legionary for 25 years, he had served faithfully and with the twisted sense of loyalty Caesar demanded. The Legion enslaved women, and as so many armies before them, used human sexuality and humiliation to conquer. It was effective, highly so – but it was damaging, for both the conqueror and the victims. The Legion, had turned him into a mass murderer, a mass rapist and a devil in his own rights. The Malpais Legate had been feared all over the West and into the East from where the great Monster of the East emerged. It was Joshua who found him, fought him and brought him to his heels, forced the giant to serve under Caesar’s flag. When he heard the news of Vulpes’ coup, that the slender and lithe frumentarius had bested the Monster of the East, some part of Joshua felt a shameful pride in knowing the stubborn boy he had once trained, the decanus he had saved from death, had risen to his full capability. It was with horror over his own reaction, that Joshua prayed that night, just as he prays this night. For forgiveness, for salvation, for a sign that he could finally find the right path. The path his Lord wishes him to walk. His life has been long and he has yet been able to die like a worthy human being. Perhaps his death finally awaits him once he’s redeemed himself from his former life. Perhaps then, he might be able to sleep soundly, for once, in this godforsaken dry land, haunted by man’s vanity and strive for prideful greatness. Perhaps, if God wills it, he will meet his protégé face to face once more. Perhaps, he will be able to feel Aurelia’s light skin against his fingertips again. 

There was only one thing Joshua could do.

***

  
Oh, what a night  
What a strange, dark night  
Boots upon my back  
My spine just up and snapped  
And I cried, "God have mercy"  
But God, He was gone  
And there my life did end  
**Strange Dark Night - Those Poor Bastards**

***

_Flagstaff, three weeks later_  
Aurelia strolled down the broad street leading down from the hill on which her and Vulpes’ villa lay, as usual these days, she was accompanied by at least one Pretorian guard – today she had the pleasure of being escorted by two. She never learned their names, she never had the will to do so – but at least they were better than having to wear a shock-collar just incase someone decided to kidnap her, or if she decided to leave. Vulpes had a strange view of freedom, but at the same time, she couldn’t blame him. He had more or less spent his own life as a slave – seeing as everyone were slaves under Caesar.  
Speaking of slaves, she thought as she passed over the threshold of the medical center in down town Flagstaff and was greeted by slaves with downturned heads. In the medical center you could find slaves, medical slaves in charge of taking care of patients, doctors and researchers. Today, Aurelia was here on a special occasion, she meant to visit Arcade who had been taken prisoner by the Legion in Shady Sands and was now a researcher in the medical center of Flagstaff with a main focus on how to advance the Legion’s healing methods. The restraints on drugs and alcohol in general had been loosened since Vulpes took power, but cigarettes and drug-use outside of medical such was still highly guarded and public drunkenness was punished harshly. Loitering and vagrancy was strictly forbidden without permits from the highest imperial legates allowing traders to travel from town to town to do their business.

“How’s my favorite deviant researcher?” Aurelia asked in a soft voice as she entered Arcade’s small office on the third floor of the building.  
“I wish you would stop calling me that”, Arcade mumbled.  
“Why? After all, it’s true”, Aurelia smiled and sat down on a chair behind Arcade and nodded for the guards to wait outside.  
“Just because it’s true, doesn’t make it any less offensive”, Arcade’s tone was tart and he didn’t look up from his papers. “Now”, he sighed, “What do I owe this pleasure, hera Aurelia? I can’t imagine you’ve walked all the way here just out of plain boredom”  
Aurelia chuckled and braided her fingers in her lap, “Maybe I have. But no, you’re right. As you know, I haven’t fallen with child in the last four years and it’s starting to concern my husband. He wished for you to find out what’s wrong with me”  
Arcade stopped writing and turned to look at her with perplexed eyes. “What’s wrong with _you_?”  
“Yes”, Aurelia smiled.  
“Fucking he-“, Arcade interrupted himself and took another deep breath. “All right, how are you feeling? Does everything feel like it usually does? Do you bleed on a regular basis?”  
“I’m feeling well and yes, I bleed monthly”  
“And you and your husband are…Active? Sexually, I mean, of course”, Arcade sounded somewhat embarrassed, but it was possibly due to the fact that he wasn’t very comfortable with talking about the imperators coital activities.  
“We are”, Aurelia answered.  
“Well, ehm”, Arcade rubbed his forehead, “How often do you copulate? And does he, release, inside you?”  
“Three to five times a week, and yes, he does”  
“All right, I’ll need to do some tests if that’s fine with you. I’ll begin with taking some blood and testing it”  
“It’s fine, yes” 

When Arcade took blood from her and analyzed it, as well as giving her a physical, silence descended upon them. It had been years now since Arcade was captured and even though they didn’t consider each other friends, really, they had come to some sort of truce and could speak with civility. It annoyed Aurelia that Arcade viewed her first and foremost as a victim suffering from what he called Stockholm syndrome – all the while berating her for being a traitor. However, Arcade had more freedom than she did, essentially because he was a man and the fact that it wasn’t common knowledge that he was a deviant. It was still forbidden and punishable by death for a man to have sex with another man, unless it was a slave – as the slave weren’t seen as a proper human being. Of course, Vulpes knew of Arcade’s tendencies, but chose to ignore them and did not speak of it.  
“Does it worry you, that you haven’t had any more children?” Arcade asked when he was done with the bloodletting and had transferred the small bottles of blood to a strange looking shaking machine.  
“I think Vulpes is more worried about it”, Aurelia answered. “He’s not the one having to give birth to them. I’d rather it stay as it is. Going through three births were enough”  
“I can imagine”, Arcade murmured. “But you’re not…Worried that he’s going to, you know, cast you aside, if you can’t give him more children?”  
At that Aurelia snorted, “No”, she answered. “He all ready has enough bastards running around the entire west and I’ve given him his only two sons. He’s just like every other man, wants more if he can have it – and if he cannot, well – we’ll see”  
Arcade frowned, “He has bastards?”  
“They all do, Arcade”, Aurelia answered with a calm voice. “I’m a result of such a relationship myself, my father only chose to claim me when Vulpes noticed me and purchased me for marriage”  
“I’ll never understand your damned culture”, he said shaking his head, “It’s all so primitive and patriarchal”  
“As apposed to the other societies in the wasteland, you mean?” Aurelia retorted with a sting in her voice. “Men are men, and no offence to you Arcade, but I don’t really think the men outside of the Legion are better”  
“You didn’t think women were treated better in Shady Sands before the Legion invaded?”  
“On the surface, yes. But the women were also exploited in a completely different manner. Left to themselves to provide for their children if the man decided to fuck off – sometimes by selling themselves. Here, as a woman, you’re always taken care of by someone – since you always _belong_ to someone. It’s not much different from how it used to work before the modern times”  
“That doesn’t make it right though”, Arcade sighed. “Anyway, it’ll take me some days to go over the results from your tests. I’ll send for you when I know more. But you look fine physically and I can’t feel or see anything out of the ordinary”  
“That’s good to know”, Aurelia answered and stood up. “My husband also wishes for you to know that he wants you to attend the Fors Furtuna festival the day after tomorrow”  
“Thank you”, Arcade nodded and bid her good day before returning to his work and Aurelia continued out towards the market square. 

Fors Fortuna was one of the largest celebrations during the summer months within the empire, celebrating the goddess of fortune and it was often wild celebrations in which the slaves also participated if they could. Inside the privacy of the homes, alcohol flowed and there were semi-public orgies all over the cities. Public fornication was not prohibited within the empire, but it wasn’t a very common sight – unless one found oneself in the middle of a war-camp with soldiers just having conquered an entire city filled with young women. Or if one found oneself inside one of the large celebratory feasts amongst the highest-ranking legionaries held to celebrate anything between heaven and earth. Fors Fortuna wasn’t any different in that manner – fortunately, Aurelia usually only had to attend the feast up until around midnight, most of the time she was allowed to be on her way home by then – considering her feeble state as a woman (at which Vulpes used to laugh ironically). Though, she knew Vulpes liked to have her close by, and sometimes she had had the displeasure to stay and witness the slave auctions and the orgies that followed. Vulpes never participated, but simply sat half-amused, half-distraught on his throne drinking wine and watching the rowdy debacle play out before him. 

Later the same evening, two days before the Fors Fortuna festival, Vulpes and Aurelia was woken by heaving banging on their door and Vulpes cursed under his breath as he launched himself out of the bed and walked stark naked out of the bedroom, downstairs to the doors. Aurelia, somewhat more concerned about her modesty quickly wrapped herself up in a simple stola and followed him downstairs. Thoughtful as she was, she grabbed a tunic for Vulpes that she tried to give him as soon as she arrived on the bottom floor and was greeted by her husband ignoring her while raving at two Praetorian guards, still wearing nothing at all. The sight would have been slightly amusing, had she not heard what Vulpes growled to the guards through clenched teeth.  
“What are you saying, you insolent fuck?” Vulpes seethed trying to contain himself.  
“I apologize Imperator, but he was apprehended just outside of Flagstaff, with a group of his men”, one of the Praetorians said.  
“Is it him? I’ll rape your mouth if I find out you’ve disturbed me in the middle of the night for someone _claiming_ to be Graham”, Vulpes clutched the speaking guards throat in his one hand an squeezed until the guard became almost blue.  
“Yes, yes Imperator”, the guard said with a breath strained voice. Vulpes let the guards throat go with a punch and turned to see Aurelia standing a few feet away with a tunic in her hands.  
“Let me get dressed and I’ll come and see for myself if it truly is the Burned Man himself”, Vulpes said in his normal and collected voice. His eyes that had been fiery a few seconds ago had turned steely and blank as he ripped the cloth out of Aurelia’s hands. “Back to bed with you, woman”, he demanded as he grabbed her hair and pulled her with him up the stairs. Aurelia didn’t fight him and quickly did as he demanded. 

When they had walked back into their bedroom, Vulpes pulled on the tunic and fastened a baltea around his waist before sitting down on the bed to begin lacing his arms with his usual black leather straps holding his gauntlets in place. Aurelia sank down to her knees in front of him and began lacing up his sandals for him.  
“Do you think it’s _him_?” she finally asked after a minute or two of silence.  
Vulpes shrugged noncommittally, “Maybe, maybe not. What? You wish to see him again?”  
“Again?” Aurelia raised both her eyebrows to him in question. “What do you mean?”  
“When you left me, seven years ago, you went to him”, Vulpes said, looking sardonic with a frown on his face as he concentrated on binding his arms.  
“I did?”  
“Yes”  
“To Zion?”  
“Yes, to Zion. Where haven’t you been? You reckless, stupid cunt. You probably fucked him as well”, he said in a strangely neutral kind of way that sent chills down Aurelia’s back.  
“Vulpes, please…” Aurelia tried to soothe him.  
Vulpes took a breath and looked up at her, reaching out to touch her chin, “I just wish I could kill you and be done with this suffering”, he said and Aurelia didn’t know if she was to sob or throw his words back in his face with a cruel smile. Instead she dropped her gaze and he soon let go of her chin. “You don’t leave this house until I say you can, do you understand me?”  
Aurelia nodded, but was quickly slapped. “ _Answer me_ ”, Vulpes hissed.  
“Yes, husband”, Aurelia said and then he stood from the bed and walked out, leaving her sitting on the floor with her palms turned upward, wondering what madness awaited her as the sun rose outside.

*** 


	4. Walking the line

_7 years earlier, Angel Cave, Zion, Utah_  
Aurelia sat and watched as Joshua went over one pistol after the other, loaded, unloaded, picked apart, put the pieces together – back and forth, over and over. She had been in Zion for two days and since she arrived and the initial chock of seeing him alive, they’d not said much to one another. It seemed, neither could figure out what to say, or even where to begin.   
It seemed Aurelia was bound to be surrounded by dangerous men, perhaps it was her lot in life – being a pawn in the games of warlords. She’d been unfortunate enough to be born the illegitimate _daughter_ of a centurion, a highly ranked centurion favored by Caesar and then married to another highly ranked legion officer, formerly favored by the man in front of her. The man who now had gone back to the feeble religion of his youth, before he and Caesar founded the Legion and unleashed themselves on the western deserts of the Mojave. He claimed to be a changed man, and Aurelia supposed she could understand why he would insist on such a thing, considering he had been dozed in fire and thrown off a cliff into a canyon. Vulpes were one of the people who witnessed how the disgraced legate caught fire and fell down the endless hole – and at some ecstatic moment, Vulpes had described the whole scenario as “glorious” and than risen from his chair and walked away, laughing quietly to himself. Aurelia could never decide whether it was a laugh of sorrow or madness – she didn’t want to know, if she was to be completely honest. It was easier loving Vulpes if she just ignored her mind wanting to start analyzing him to much, surely that in itself would drive her to madness as well. 

“What are you thinking about?” Joshua said after some time. Aurelia hadn’t noticed that he had put the guns down and sat with his elbows on the makeshift table, looking at her with his clear blue eyes. In the dim light inside the cave, it was hard to make out the incredible blueness of his eyes, but she knew it was there – just as she knew how his skin wrinkles slightly just where his eyelids ends and his dark lashes begin.   
“Nothing, really”, Aurelia answered and shifted her position in the chair.   
Joshua hummed and leaned back in his chair. He had taken the bullet proof vest off and from the two unbuttoned top buttons of his shirt, she saw the bandages that stretched over his entire body, protecting the savaged flesh from the rays of the sun and the dirt from the ground.   
“Didn’t look like nothing, girl”, Joshua said in his deep and vibrating voice.   
“No?” Aurelia said and crossed her arms over her chest. She didn’t mean to come off as taking a defensive position, but she still felt twisted and somewhat confused about sitting there, so close to a man that was supposed to be dead. A man, deemed more wicked than Caesar himself and certainly in league with her husband.   
“No”, Joshua said silently and cocked his head, watching her through the opening of his bandages.   
“I was thinking about how I keep being surrounded by dangerous men and why that is, do you know?” Aurelia said.   
“You reckon the men you’ve grown up with are more dangerous than others?” it looked as if he frowned under the white wrappings, but she couldn’t really tell. He was a difficult man to read even before his entire body was covered in fabric.   
“Are they not?” she asked and cleared her throat. “From what I’ve seen thus far in my travels, people outside of Arizona live very differently. They have no slaves, they chose who they marry, women _work_ , get to make decisions”   
“Yes”, he hummed, without saying anything further.   
“Why do you hate women so much? I’ve often wondered, how Vulpes can claim to love me so much he has to beat me into submission. How my father only decided to claim me when someone else wanted me. How you-”   
“How I? _What_?” Joshua interrupted with a bite to his voice.   
“How you could do those things that you did”, Aurelia said in a somewhat careful tone. 

None of the legionaries apologized, especially not to a woman and Aurelia wasn’t expecting Joshua to make any excuses for the horrors he had done in his life. He claimed to atone for them now, by changing his ways – but all Aurelia could see, was the same man she had seen years past. A man hungry with power, simply turning to another Lord for salvation and permission to spill blood and tears with righteousness. How was his Lord different from Mars, or any of the other Gods? They were all Gods, in any case. And Gods, just like Caesar, gave demands and the humans had no other choice but to answer and obey. 

Joshua rose from his chair and walked past the table and crouched before her, laying his hands on her knees, looking up at her with his striking eyes. It was as if they stood out even more with the light contrast of the bandages.   
“You ask me ‘how’”, he said. “Human nature, is how. We all have it inside ourselves to be monsters – it’s something we chose, or something that is chosen for us. You are no different, Aurelia. You’re strong and intelligent, I’m certain Vulpes made sure to educate you, as he couldn’t possibly stand spending so much time in private with someone not even the least bit erudite. And so you should know, that greed and pride is what drives us”   
“And in what way are you different now, from then?”  
“I am not”, he said and seemed to ponder the thought for a moment, “But I strive to be”   
“You’re no different from them all, Malpais Legate”, Aurelia scoffed and Joshua’s eyes narrowed as he took a deep breath. “Don’t you try to lie to me or blame human nature. You did what you did, I’ve done what I’ve done. I don’t lay the blame elsewhere than where it belongs”   
“And where is that?” Joshua looked up at her, stroking one of her knees.   
“It’s all here”, she said and pointed to her temple. “Biology and circumstance has made me what I am, but when it comes to the actions I’ve chosen – they’ve been all me”   
“That is true”  
“And the same is true about you”   
“Yes”, Joshua said and stood up. “It’s past time we got some sleep, is it not? I’ll need your help tomorrow. Please come with me”   
“Tomorrow? Of course”, Aurelia said and looked into his eyes as he stood there before her with his arms to his sides.   
“Now”  
“Now?” Aurelia frowned. “I’m married”   
Joshua chuckled in a way that sounded more devastated than anything else. “I don’t mean it like that. It’s better you sleep in here with me, than out there. There are still legionaries skulking around you know, and I don’t like the thought of you sleeping out there in the open” 

Aurelia thought for a moment. Why did he care, really? She knew exactly who and what Joshua Graham was and used to be, and as he reached his hand out for her to grasp it, she hesitated but at the same time, she couldn’t help but to feel that profound feeling of safety and _home_ about him. His presence made everything seem like it was just as it was supposed to be. Nothing more, nothing less. Like it had used to be, before his death, before Vulpes took his whores before her, _before the stillbirth_.   
She took his hand and let herself be dragged to her feet and then led into a smaller part of the cave, away from the main part, where Joshua showed her to a cot where she could sleep. He himself lay down on the other side of the room, on a bedroll and then turned his back to her. Aurelia sat down on the cot and looked around her. It was still hard to believe where she was, that _he_ was here, in front of her. But she knew, she knew she couldn’t stay. Not really. She couldn’t trust him, even though he had been disgraced and was hunted by the Legion. She couldn’t, simply because she _knew_ the Malpais Legate and no one just stops being a loyal subject to Mars, no matter in what disguise one chose to claim the god’s presence.

***

_Present time, the Citadel, Washington DC_

Et erat mater mulieris meretricis facta esset, si potestatem habuit, libenter vellem ut observaret os eius propagationem ac tragica caede dilaceraret, tandem accipiens eandem per suos spiritus circum labia mea, cantavit gallus.  
-  
 **Caesar Vulpes Inculta, Imperatorem Legionis**

“What in the steel does this gibberish even mean?” Arthur looked perplexed as he tried to read the finely written Latin on the note he received via courier from Arizona.  
The scribe looked at the elder with fear and doubt in her eyes, writhing as she cleared her throat. “I’d rather not say, Elder”, she said after a few seconds to long.  
Arthur huffed and frowned as he read the words, he knew _some_ Latin, after all – but this, this was well beyond his own knowledge.  
“Something about… My _mother_?” he asked and looked back up at the scribe, meeting her pale green eyes, sighing and then looking back down. “Why the hell would he write ‘labia’?”  
“Please, Elder”, the scribe pleaded, “Don’t… Just don’t try to decipher it further”  
“Scribe Norah, you tell me what it says or so help me I’ll put you on latrine duty for the next month”, Arthur threw the piece of paper away and stared at the frightened poor woman in front of him.  
The scribe fidgeted and carefully reached down and picked up the letter again, “I…”, she hesitated.  
“ _Now_ ”, Arthur demanded.

“Elder Maxson”, the physician Cade entered the room, “Do you have a minute-“   
“I do not”, Arthur growled and Cade stopped in his tracks. “Or do you by any chance know Latin fluently enough to translate a letter. It seems our scribe here, Norah, does not wish for me to know the content of this letter, addressed to me from Vulpes Inculta”   
“Vulpes Inculta?” Cade asked, completely unaware of whom Arthur spoke of.   
“The emperor of the Legion”, Arthur mumbled and snatched the letter out of the scribes hands and gave it to Cade. “Do you understand any of it?” 

Cade looked at the letter and as he read it, his eyes widened and his jaw seemed to drop.   
“Is this a response to the letter sent to Arizona, concerning the Peace talks?” Cade asked.   
“Well, I don’t exactly _know_ what it says, yet”, Arthur said with a irritated tone, “But I would assume it is, yes. Now, translate it!” he almost roared.   
Cade cleared his throat and looked at the scribe who was seemingly trying to make herself as invisible as possible, backing closer and closer to the wall behind her. “Word for word?”   
“Goddamnit, _yes_!” Arthur shouted and the scribe squealed.   
“As you wish”, Cade said and looked down at the letter. “I’m sorry, sir. But here goes. The letter states the following. _Your mother was a whore and if I would have had the opportunity, I would have gladly watched her spread and bloody, taking her last breath with her lips around my cock._ From Caesar Vulpes Inculta, Imperator of the Legion.” 

Cade’s hands shook as he looked up at the stunned face of Elder Maxson, who stood silent with raised eyebrows trying to make sense of what he just heard.   
“ _That’s_ Inculta’s answer to an invitation to a diplomatic meeting?” Arthur said, still obviously stunned and taken back by the fact the one could even express such obscenities in Latin.   
“I apologize, Elder”, Cade said and cast a glance at the poor scribe hurdled up against the wall, blushing and breathing quickly from nervousness.   
“Veronica said they were animals”, Arthur said, “I just didn’t imagine a leader of such a large area of land to be so… Depraved”   
“Do you wish to administer an answer?” Cade asked Arthur, but Arthur was at a loss for words.

***


	5. Flying high, moaning low

Vulpes ran his slim long fingers through Aurelia’s long dark hair, watching his fingers trail down her bared neck and back. He followed the slightly dented marks in her neck, showing her status as a female of the Legion, and also a slave owned by himself. When he was younger, he had spent hours upon hours just watching her sleep, trailing her body with soft fingers, getting to know her shape and the forms that made out her worldly body. He had never loved anything before, the few memories he had of his tribal family in Utah, before they were all slaughtered by the Legion forces, were blurred and sparse. From a young age, he hadn’t had a family and he’d always wanted one for himself, one that would be a true, normal family. Not something like the tribal debauchery he had spent his youngest years in, with polygamy and not knowing who’s the father of which child. He had been adamant in spending himself in Aurelia every time he could, but since Ferox consummation and later birth, she hadn’t been able to conceive and it worried Vulpes. Not that he wasn’t satisfied by the fact that she had given him two surviving sons, however, Lucius had eight children with his wife, and of course, he could agree that eight was a bit over the top, but four was standard within the Legion. Though, of course, he knew as much that if Aurelia’s body didn’t respond, there was little he could do. 

As he trailed the small of her back and slid the cover down, letting her round butt cheeks get kissed by the midday sun shining through the curtain-clad windows of their bedroom, she moaned silently and he brushed his lips against her shoulder, making her body respond with an arch coming closer to his own warm skin. Aurelia’s head was still buried in the pillow as he continued to kiss her shoulder with fiercer lips and her silent moans became passionate mewling as his hands stroked her hips, fingers dipping down and touching the dark curls of her sex. Slowly he started stroking her slit, drawing his fingers deeper and meeting her folds, separating them to feel the warm moisture inside her, as his tongue lavished the salty skin around her shoulder and neck.  
“Do you trust me, my love?” he asked her with a husky voice and Aurelia stretched out beside him, turning her head and looking into his eyes with her large dark blue hues and with a crook of her plump lips, she nodded in silence to him, stroking the tip of her smaller nose against his own straight and large nose. He reached up and cupped her chin, kissing the tip of her nose gently with a small, but slow peck. Aurelia smiled wider, though her smile remained soft and still lidded from recently having woken from a long sleep. Vulpes trailed his hands along her elegant neck and down to her chest, with those large, voluptuous breasts that had fed his sons to life for years and he turned his head down to look at them. It was starting to show that she was no youth any longer, as well as having nursed two children, but it didn’t matter to him. When he’d bought her, her chest had been much smaller than it was now, the breasts plumper with less stretchmarks – but he did so enjoy them being larger and not as young and perky as they once had been. His body had conserved itself much better than hers, though he hadn’t carried two lives inside him for almost a year each. He hadn’t birthed them, fed them and carried them around all day as toddlers. 

He leaned down further and let his lips grace her breasts and he let the soft, sensitive skin of his lips brush over her silky skin of the soft cushions, over the perking nipples, as one of his hands stroked her sides.  
It was so seldom that he made lover to her, he rarely did. He needed to wake up with a certain mood in his mind to crave it, otherwise he simple preferred a good fuck, taking his wife hard with his hands buried in her round curves, giving her bruises that lasted for days. But today, they had both slept for almost twelve hours and he’d awoken in a gentle mood, simply taken aback by Aurelia’s beautiful body sleeping softly next to him. So many years, they had spent together. And even though they had been apart for some of the years, it didn’t matter to him. They had been together through that as well, since no man could break up a marriage granted by the son of Mars. 

Just as Vulpes was preparing to dive down between the lush thighs of his wife, glancing over her blushing and heaving chest, the door to their bedroom opened and small steps was heard as well as giggles.  
“Mommy!” a small oblivious voice rang through the room and behind, there were heavier footsteps following, shooing the child who obviously had escaped its nanny and made his way to his parent’s bedroom.  
Aurelia’s right arm stretched out over her face as she groaned, while she stroked her left hands fingers through Vulpes’ hair. Vulpes sighed and kissed the curls of his wife’s sex before looking up and meeting the curious blue eyes of his youngest son gazing up at him. Aurelia quickly closed her gaping thighs and turned to her side, as Vulpes sat up in the bed and drew the covers over his achingly hard cock, while smiling softly towards his unknowing son.  
“God morning son”, Vulpes said and reached out, grabbing Ferox under his arms, throwing him up into the bed, which made the small child giggle and sprawl out as he landed on the soft mattress. There was a knock on the already open door and the nanny peaked inside. The young woman looked down onto the floor and bowed on the threshold, not daring to meet his eyes.  
“My lord imperator, I’m so sorry. He simply made his way up while I was busy for a moment preparing his midday meal”, the woman said in a shaking voice.  
“It’s fine”, Vulpes answered and looked at Aurelia who now was laying on her side, still completely in the nude, while Ferox sat with his back towards her just before the crook of her waist, while she was stroking his brown locks, falling down his neck. “Have the kitchen send up breakfast for us”, Vulpes said as he lay down beside Aurelia, with Ferox in sitting in the middle.  
“And the boy’s midday meal, my lord?” the nurse asked carefully.  
“You can wait a moment, can you not?” Vulpes snarled without looking at her and the women answered a quick ‘Yes my lord’, before exiting their private room. 

Vulpes had decided that this wasn’t a day he wanted to leave bed, he felt perfectly fine just ignoring the fucker waiting down in the dungeons for him – the burned man, _the_ Joshua Graham, as well as any answer from the boisterous bastards of the Brotherhood of Steel. Not matter the joy he actually found in sending them the indignant letter, today was not the day to bask in the humor he was certain to receive in reply. Today was a day for his family, and especially for himself to just relax without having to think too much of his duties and the things he has to do.  
He turned his head and looked at both Ferox and Aurelia, smiling slightly to them both as they waited for the slaves to bring them breakfast from the kitchen. When Ferox had spent some time with his parents, they could eat in solitude with only the two of them as each other’s company – and then, then he could ravish her sweet, sweat-slicked body just like had had planned to.

***

Her orgasms had left her shaking to the core, it was indeed a delight when Vulpes decided to be in this particular mood, all sweet and caring. She knew it could change in a heartbeat, but that didn’t mean that she didn’t relish those few times it happened. When the hurt from Picus’ death got too grand, she found that the times when her husband acted gentle, she relaxed. He was getting less irrational with age, but still unfortunately retained his characteristic of being difficult to read and know, unless it was his normal sickness. Though, those fits became fewer and fewer, she still kept her distance when she noticed his mood gaining unusually.

Vulpes had spent the entire day with her in bed, eventually being able to chase away Ferox who had interrupted their spousal enjoyment, but after some light breakfast, they could continue were they had left off and Vulpes was so gentle, she started to suspect something was wrong. But when he had eaten her out, he drove into her like a feral beast and she knew that everything was as it was supposed to be.  
They had ordered up wine during the late afternoon and had lain naked in bed during the entire evening, getting drunk on the sweet tasting red wine, whilst copulating with pauses. Those evenings were few these days, they had always been few, she reminded herself. Her husband had either been away or always too consumed with work to find time to actually spend a longer amount of time with her. Mostly, she was thankful for it, but sometimes, she realized just how much she loved him – and still did.  
Tasting the sweet wine on his delicious lips made her stomach flutter and she almost giggled and he bit into her bottom lip and swirled it with his soft and wet tongue. 

The morning after, she woke to Vulpes dressing after having shaved in front of the mirror on her make up-table in their bedroom.  
“Vulpes”, she said quietly and he turned to watch her form in the bed, cocking his head as she slid the fabric of the cover between her legs and ground against it.  
“I need to work”, he said and leaned down to kiss her forehead. But she quickly grabbed his chest plate and dragged him down over her. “You wanton whore”, he chuckled as his lips fell onto hers and he pressed his hips against her willing sex.  
“ _Your_ whore”, she whispered as his face leaned down into her neck and she began unbuckling his armor with swift hands.  
“Don’t”, he breathed and swatted her working hands away, “I don’t have time to put it back on”, and her hands stopped working.  
“Just a quick fuck then”, she said, trying to put the disappointment away.  
“You’re insatiable, you vixen”, Vulpes groaned as his cock hardened under his baltea and he pressed up against her. “I gave you the entire day yesterday, and you’re still as wanton as the whore of a dingy brothel”  
“Shut up”, Aurelia seethed through her teeth and grabbed Vulpes’ hair, pulling it as they both groaned in arousal and before she had time to notice, he was inside her, fucking her in earnest. Vulpes’ fingers slid against her throat and he pressed down, effectively chocking her whilst pounding into her with a deep frown over his features.  
“You choose your words poorly, my dear”, he snarled breathily and caught her lips in his. 

Aurelia didn’t orgasm that morning, but the weight of Vulpes on top of her, was enough for her right then and there. After he had left for the political center, she dressed in a dark, almost black wrapping stola, covering her in the way the Caesar’s wife should be covered. Before, when Vulpes’ was merely the head of the frumentarius, she didn’t have to cover up as much as she needed now, when she went out of the house.  
Now, she was covered from top to toe, in dark fabric and gold, with a heavy ornament headpiece covering all of her long dark hair and almost all of her face, except her mouth. Chains of gold dazzled as she walked and the wind blew the fabrics cooling her from the heat gathering with the dark color. She was meant to look otherworldly, and she certainly did, with only her mouth showing and her fingers and toes clad in gold and chains. The headpiece almost creating a black and gold gloria around her head.  
Vulpes had made the dress-codes for both men and women alike stricter during his rule as Caesar. Only the legionaries used the red fabric at this point, and the civil citizens of the Legion’s lands wore mainly black or darker colors. Jewelry had become more and more common and depending on your status, you wore more or less. High status females such as her self along with the priestesses covered their faces with dark masks adorned with gold, as a marking of their wealth and power. 

Escorted by two praetorians, Aurelia walked from her and Vulpes’ villa down to the market and then turned towards the political center, walking inside and letting her feet carry her towards her husband’s office. The Caesar had a throne-room, but Vulpes’ didn’t like using it, he was never a man for such decadent shows of power as sitting upon a throne, making demands. No matter his murderous ways, he was a simple man of sorts and preferred working more like a bureaucrat.  
Just as she arrived in front of his large doors, a cough made her turn around.  
“Aurelia”, Lucius said with a small smile on his lips. Beside him stood her father and Aurelia nodded silently towards them, mostly Lucius, as she tried her best to ignore Aurelius, considering their past grievances. “I didn’t except you to visit our lord imperator today”, Lucius continued and strode closer to Aurelia, and thankfully Aurelius remained where he was.  
“Surprising as it may seem, I do miss my husband at times, legate”, Aurelia said with a wary smirk on her lips. Neither man could see her eyes, but she kept an eye on Aurelius just in case.  
Lucius nodded, “He is not here, domina”  
“No?” she asked with curiosity and Lucius smiled slightly pulling her aside, farther away from Aurelius.  
“He is interrogating the Malpais Legate”, Lucius said. “And then preparing for the feast of Fortuna. It might not be wise to disturb him, as of yet”  
“I see”, Aurelia cocked her head to the side, as if she was mulling something over. She had forgotten about the feast, how that was even possible, she did not know. She did so little herself these days, having slaves for almost all kinds of chores and such, she mainly read or tried her best to be available to her husband whenever he needed her. “I suppose I should take my leave, then. Thank you, legate”, Aurelia smiled and curtsied to Lucius who gave her a nod before she turned and walked away. He gesticulated to her guards before they followed her and urged them to keep up with her.  
When she got out of the political building, she headed towards the market. She needed to speak with the burning man, she knew she had too, ever since Vulpes had accused her of fleeing to him during her absence from her husband all those years ago. He accused her of bedding the burning man, though it was typical for Vulpes. Acting like that, blaming and then punishing. Perhaps she could sneak away during the feast to see the disgraced legate and simply talk to him. She had no memory of him, didn’t even know what kind of a man she was looking for, only that he had burned and therefore, it must show on him somehow.  
She would have to wait, bide her time.

***

“Don’t fucking move”, the deep voice hissed as a leather-clad hand covered her mouth. Aurelia panicked and looked around, trying to understand what was going on. Was it her father? No, he sounded differently. This voice, it had a strange accent, one she didn’t recognize at all, it was harder and more nasal than the accents of the old language that was spoken in these parts of the wasteland. She couldn’t see the man pulling her back into the small valley, covering her mouth with his hand, but she could feel hard metal against her backside and the man somehow smelled like…Motor oil.  
The man dragged her further in between the houses and she felt something pointy, cold and metallic press against her throat – most likely a gun of some kind, Aurelia thought and she tried to breathe slowly through her nose. The stranger’s hand tightened even further around her mouth and soon, she couldn’t even see the street she had been walking just a few seconds before.  
Were where the praetorians? Everything had happened so fast – one second, she had been walking home with two praetorians following just behind her, the next second, a stranger had grabbed her and dragged her into a dark alley.

“I’m going to release your mouth, if you even make a small noise, I’ll blow your goddamn head off, you get me?” the voice hissed and Aurelia nodded carefully, trying to stay completely still.  
The man released her mouth and she kept quiet as she could feel him pressing the gun, or whatever it was, harder into her neck. He pulled off the fabric covering her head and parts of her face, turning her around to look at her. She looked back at him with widened eyes, trying to recall if she had ever seen anyone like him before. She didn’t think she had. The man, was dressed in some hard, metallic armor, not the power armor of the Brotherhood of Steel – instead, it was a deep green and dirty old world armor, possibly having belonged to the military before the war. The man who looked back at her, inspecting her from top to toe, had light green eyes, thick but shapely eyebrows and a ratty bandana covering his lower face. His hair was bleached from the sun, dirt blonde and reached his shoulders. She could guess he had a beard under the bandana from the hair growing down the sides just in front of his ears, but she couldn’t be sure. He was not very tall, but he was still several inches taller than herself, thin but under the slightly trashed leatherjacket he wore under his armor, she could see that he was muscular. Her jaws could definitely feel it, as they ached from his harsh grip over her mouth.  
She moved her lips to say something, but he directly narrowed his eyes and glared at her, telling her that talking was a big ‘no’. Aurelia closed her lips and looked worriedly at him, trying to discern what he wanted and who he was.  
“You’re Six?” the man whispered, looking around over her shoulder.  
Aurelia frowned, having long since forgotten the nickname she was given in New Vegas.  
“Ivy, then?” he tried again and Aurelia then understood. It came back to her in a flash and she nodded carefully. She almost spoke again, but the muzzle of the gun he held against her pressed into her skin again and she thought better of it. “Stay quiet and come with me. And I’m serious, I’ll fucking kill you if you speak or try anything”  
Aurelia gave the man one nod and allowed for him to lead her away, a strong grip around her wrists as he held them behind her back. 

After sneaking through a few more alleys, he bent down and kicked the lid of a sewage hole, after another two kicks, the lid opened and he gestured for her to go down the hole. Aurelia looked at him, hoping he was kidding, but of course, he wasn’t. She followed him with her gaze as she carefully lowered herself down into the sewage tunnels and before she knew it, another pair of hands took hold of her and Aurelia gasped from fright. What the hell was happening to her?  
The two new hands held her tightly as the blonde man climbed down and soon he landed on the wet surface below the streets with a thump, his army grade boots squeaking slightly in the dampness.  
They started moving through the sewers, the two people walking just beside her, both of them gripping her arms tightly as they dragged her through foul smelling tunnels, seemingly following marks that Aurelia couldn’t see or somehow decipher. After what felt like half an eternity, they ended up in a lit up machine room where she could see two bedrolls and a ham radio, connected to an old battery that sparked worryingly in a corner of the small space. The hands of the person she had yet to see pushed her down on her knees on one of the bedrolls and released her. Aurelia slumped down on the floor, looking around her and then up at the blond man who now stood just to her side, head turned to what was another man, dark-skinned with road goggles covering his eyes. The dark man crossed his arms over his chest as he nodded towards the blonde man and the blonde man walked to stand in front of Aurelia and then crouched down, cocking his head as he looked at her.  
“So, you’re Courier Six?” he said, pulling down his bandana and showing his smirking mouth, showing off strangely white teeth, making Aurelia narrow her eyes in suspicion. Did he wear dentures? No, they looked to be his own. _How curious_ , she thought.  
“And you are?” Aurelia asked, almost a whisper but still managing to sound harsh in her tone without hissing.  
“Your husband’s greatest nightmare, doll”, the blonde man kept smiling.

***


	6. Bombed out of my mind

The detonations shook the entire city of Flagstaff and as Joshua Graham stood cuffed with Inculta in front of him, he would expect the former frumentarius, turned Caesar to rush out of the dungeon to find out what had just happened. Instead, the boy who had always been too strange for his own good looked up at the ceiling, as if to see if it would hold from the blows. The heavy concrete huffed and crackled, spilling some gravel down and Inculta shrugged easily, turning his face down again, focusing on Graham.   
“Is that your doing, perhaps?” he asked with a mild tone.   
“Afraid not”, Joshua answered, glancing up at the ceiling himself.   
“I thought so”, Vulpes said and shifted his stance, crossing his arms over his chest and looking like he mused something over in his mind. “Sounded almost like mini nukes, and tell me, who has mini nukes?” he seemed to ask Joshua, or himself – it was hard for Joshua to truly know, so he frowned, looking at Vulpes.   
After a moment of silence, Vulpes smirked, meeting Joshua’s eyes yet again, “Well?” the imperator asked.   
“Yes?” Joshua said.   
“Did I stutter?” Vulpes’ eyes turned dark and Joshua knew all too well what that meant. They were all too much alike, the two of them and where others would have been frightened, the former Malpais Legate couldn’t help but to feel a homely recognition.   
“The Brotherhood of Steel”, Joshua said, wetting his lower lip, chapped from the dry desert winds.   
“Correct”, Vulpes smiled. “Perhaps I succeeded in provoking them. This certainly makes my afternoon rather more interesting”  
“I would say so”, Joshua nodded.   
“Mm”, Vulpes hummed and looked down for a few seconds, before sighing. “So, why are you in my prison, Graham?”   
“I went for a stroll”  
“Hilarious”, Vulpes huffed and Joshua smirked under his bandages.   
“It is the truth, more or less, since so few vehicles work these days”, Joshua said. “Though, my getting here is not what you asked me to explain. I came for forgiveness”   
“And what forgiveness could you possibly find with those who executed you for your disgrace?” Vulpes looked into his eyes with a slight snarl on his lips.   
“There's been a change of leadership”, Joshua cocked his head.  
“And you think that will make a difference?” Vulpes asked, shifting his stance again.   
“I do”  
Vulpes looked as if he thought for a moment, then he nodded. “Well then, make yourself useful. It seems the building is threatening to fall down over us”   
“Leaving would be a start”, Joshua deadpanned.   
Vulpes looked at him, but then nodded for the door and Joshua started to walk towards it. 

Vulpes calmly walked out of the prison with Joshua Graham shackled at his side, strolling through the dusty streets with his machete in a tight grip, walking towards the nuclear dust blowing up from the detonations. Joshua could hear the frying sounds of laser rifles shooting, as well as the silent movements of well trained legionaries moving like shadows around the clunky metal outfits of the Brotherhood. Two vertibirds circled the sky and fired at the buildings with mini-guns, dotting the concrete with an onslaught of bullets.   
Joshua looked to his side, seeing Vulpes eyes glistening from bloodlust and Joshua could feel the same reassuring and so very familiar rising within himself. When they closed in on the structured chaos of advanced technology trying to master human physique and sharp machetes, Vulpes turned to Joshua with a smirk on his lips and threw the machete to him.   
“Survive, and you have your pardon”, Vulpes said and all Joshua needed to do, was give him a confirming look. Still in shackles, he caught the hilt of the machete with ease and weighed it in his hands. Vulpes grabbed his ripper from his baltea and soon, automatic gunfire sounded as well as snipers firing into the hazy dust. It seemed Flagstaff was very well protected, Joshua thought as he leaped towards a Brotherhood soldier clad in simple combat armor, slashing through her neck within seconds before easily moving on to his next target. 

Just as Joshua pushed the machete through another helpless body, successfully impaling a poorly trained Brotherhood soldier, a large firing sound was heard and an explosion darkened the sky for a few seconds. A howitzer from out of sight had hit one of the vertibirds, making the large airborne vehicle crash straight down into the market place just behind where the fire fight was taking place. Then three other large bangs were heard and within another couple of seconds, the large missiles shot through the air and two of them crashed into the other vertibird, exploding and effectively sinking it as well.   
The snipers along with legionaries equipped with automatic weapons worked on disarming the few still living Brotherhood soldiers, shielded by power armor – but Joshua knew, that as soon as just one single part of their armor started to fail, breaking from the bullets – they’d be dead within minutes. They _were_ dead within minutes, one of the sniper’s finally hitting one of the fusion cores in the back of one power armor and the other one having its legs sliced from behind, making the large tin can stumble backwards and then loosing its helmet as a legionary ripped it off. Inculta was straddling the poor man within seconds and sawing his throat open with his infamous ripper, dismembering him without pardon. 

Inculta looked absolutely manic, with blood splattering his face and he stood up over the corpse, licking his bloodied lips before wiping his face with the back of his hand. He slicked his hair back with the blood on his hands and met Joshua’s eyes, giving him a grin, looking like the devil himself. If the devil truly existed, it wouldn’t be surprising to Joshua, if Vulpes actually turned out to be him. Vulpes was Legion, Vulpes was the crowned beast in all his glory, Nero, intelligent and brutal, merciless but cunning enough to calculate all his chances – an opponent impossible to best, especially if God had turned his back on you. When the lamb had been left soaking in its own blood, what was the lamb supposed to do? _Cleanse its clothes white with blood_.   
Joshua soaked in the sight before him, Vulpes walking towards him, drenched in the blood of the profligates, the dissolutes. He stood before Joshua, like a risen antichrist filled with the salvation God had once again denied him and he put his hands on Joshua’s shoulders, giving him a kiss tainted with the gore and ashes of those God would deem as innocents caught up in an endless war between self-appointed lords. The kiss, it tasted metallic and sweet on Joshua’s lips and he knew he’d finally been released from his bondage. The light had seen him, after all those years of searching, Joshua felt filled up with its purpose and the glory of its wonders. 

“Amicum gratissimum”, Vulpes whispered and looked into his eyes.

***

To his surprise, Ivy laughed. He had finally found the almost mythological woman they called Courier Six and succeeded in taking her away from her tyrannical husband and when he told her what he saw as truth, considering the vertibirds and smaller army of Brotherhood Knights and soldiers he had brought with him, that _he_ was her husband’s worst nightmare – she _laughed_. He thought Ivy to be brainwashed, possessed or simply having gone mad being held captive within the Legion for so long. Few knew from where she came from the beginning, he had heard all kinds of stories about the woman who got captured by Vulpes Inculta, forced to marry him and carry his children and subsequently brought New Vegas under her with the help of men carrying spears. He didn’t know what was truth and what was not, what he did understand, was that she was important. She had been important and she still was, and the Brotherhood wanted her and so he would do them this one favor. His _last_ favor.

“What’s so funny?” he asked her, looking into her deep blue eyes as he cocked his head to the side, studying her soft features. She was a beautiful woman, tantalizing, even. Her dark hair flowed down her shoulders in round curls, moving with her slightly blushing but large breasts as she breathed heavily where she sat on her knees before him in her dark strange dress. Her skin was surprisingly pale a woman who spent most of her time in the desert climate of Arizona, but it was possible she seldom got to be outside in the sun – and the fabric she covered herself in, probably helped her skin to keep its milky shade.   
“That you’d believe yourself to be a nightmare to the creature that is my husband”, Ivy said, smiling with an intent in her eyes he couldn’t fully decipher. Was it teasing? Benevolent or malicious?   
“You don’t even know who I am”, he answered her, searching her face for answers.   
Ivy huffed and smiled kindly to him, a smile that surprised him and made him cautious. “Have you heard the legend of Hel?” she asked.   
“Of hell? Are you adhering to the pre-war religion?” he asked her in turn with a lifted eyebrow.   
“Pre-war religion? You speak of Christianity, the religion of the former Malpais Legate”, she said with a disgusted look on her face, “No. I do not mean ‘hell’, I talk of an old goddess – believed in by the northern peoples of what old books name Scandinavia – from the far north on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean”  
“You’re well read”, he nodded.   
“My husband values education”, she answered with simplicity in a short tone. “When you deem yourself the nightmare of my husband, I can’t help but to laugh as it seems strange to meet someone confessing to be my equal, you see”, she pause and smiled, “I have suffered and I still suffer, at the hands of the man I love more dearly than anything else apart from my sons. However, before I tell you the legend of the goddess Hel, you need to understand that I don’t have the one husband. I’m sure you mean my current one, the one still alive”  
“What?” he couldn’t help but to look at her with wide eyes. He had never expected her to be this talkative, nor as…Well, bat shit-crazy.   
“Yes?” she asked.   
“You have two husbands?”   
“Yes, or so I have been told. I don’t remember marrying the second one, but I’ve met him and he confirmed our union. It displeased my lord husband, and it resulted in the death of the one I had forgotten”   
“I don’t…” he shook his head, not knowing if it was even worth listening to her any further. He looked back to Travis, the Brotherhood night standing watch behind her and Travis shrugged.   
“Hel, was the goddess of the underworld - Helheim, home of Hel, what we call ‘Hades’, but as in the _actual_ underworld and not the personification of the place itself as it is in my faith. She was believed to be in charge of who died, from sickness or old age. You see, the northern peoples of this culture – believed that if you died in battle, you came to what they would deem as Paradise”   
“That can’t be far off from what you believe in the Legion?” he asked, interrupting her. She gave him an annoyed look, as if he had said the most idiotic thing possible.   
“It’s very far off, now shut up”, she said before continuing her telling. “Her father was Loki, a god known for his mischiefs and his cunning mind – a trickster of sorts, and her mother was a giant. They described Hel as being greedy, easily adapting to circumstances that would gain her something she craved; wealth, security, love – it didn’t matter as long as she got what she longed after. It was with her, that disease in the world came to be. She brought the world its sickness, plague and in a way, a destruction so cunning, not even the pre-war science we know could control it in the end. Her body was split in two, the one part alive – the other, dead”  
“Uh, yeah, okay”, he shook his head in confusion, looking at her through narrowed eyes and she paused. He gestured for her to continue and she wetted her lips.   
“What is interesting about Hel, is that during the death of Baldur, the son of the greatest of their gods – another god named Frigga, demands for Baldur’s release from the underworld and from Hel who had taken him down into her realm. Hel answered Frigga, telling her that Baldur would only be released once every living creature mourned and cried over his death. Frigga succeeded in this, making every living creature, big and small, cry for the dead god Baldur – every one, except for the giantess Thokk”, she looked straight into his eyes with a questioning gaze, not a hostile one, but one that seemed to read his thoughts and it unnerved him. He tried not to blink, but it was as if her stare forced his eyes to show his weakness.   
“Remember that I told you who Hel’s father was?” she asked.   
“Uh”, he said, confused and almost ashamed for being forced to somehow reveal himself, giving her a hint of his true self, his soul.   
“Loki”, Travis said from behind her and she nodded with a smile.   
“The trickster god, Loki, yeah”, she bit her lower lip before opening her mouth again to speak. “Turns out, Loki had disguised himself as the giantess Thokk, the only one in the whole world who didn’t mourn Baldur’s passing and that resulted in Baldur staying in the underworld, imprisoned for all eternity with Hel, until the end of time”   
With a smile, she turned quiet and he looked at her, mulling over what she had said, and he didn’t get it. He looked over at Travis, who seemed to muse it over as well, frowning down on the small woman on her knees on the bedroll.   
“So why the fuck did you waste our time with this shit? It tells me nothing of your husband or why he should fear you instead of me”, he said and rose to his full height again.   
She chuckled, following him with her eyes as he towered above her. “It tells you a great deal”, she said.   
“What, you’re her? Hel?” Travis said from behind her.   
Ivy shrugged, giving a side-wide smile.   
“That’s just a heap of bullshit”, Travis huffed and looked away.   
“Yeah, you could say that again”, she smirked. “Oh well, where are you taking me? I’d advice you to start moving soon, or you’ll loose the little head start you've gained from my husband”   
He couldn’t help but to be the one chuckling this time, “Oh, we’ve got a head start, all right”

***


	7. Caught

She was a curious woman, that was for sure, Arthur thought as he watched Courier Six, who’s real name seemed to be Aurelia Inculta, or Aurelia of Phoenix, since they didn’t usually take their husband’s surnames within the Legion. He stood behind the security glass, looking into her holding-cell where she had been brought from Arizona by vertibird by the Lone Wanderer, Jamie. Jamie had relayed to Arthur that she had been behaving very strangely since they had taken her from the streets of Flagstaff, successfully forcing her to come with them. She had told him and the Brotherhood knight that accompanied Jamie, Travis, an old strange legend about an old Norse goddess. Why, they didn’t know. Perhaps she tried to scare them, or she was, in fact, completely and utterly mad. With everything that Arthur had heard about the Legion, and the disgusting letter Inculta had sent him – nothing would surprise him.  
“It’s so strange seeing her like this”, Veronica said as she stood beside Arthur, watching Six. “It’s been so many years, but still, she looks almost the same” 

The Courier sat on a lone chair in the empty room, lit up by harsh fluorescent lights, her long dark hair was tousled looking more like an abandoned birds nest than actual hair, and she had deep dark pools under her eyes. Her skin was pale and the black sheet-like dress she wore had wrinkled and loosened, leaving one shoulder bare and her décolletage very visible. She was sucking on her lower lip as she pickered her nails, watching her own hands and seemingly ignoring Arthur and Veronica both, as she would be able to see them on the other side of the security glass.  
“She doesn’t look beaten, only tired”, Veronica noted, “And she’s rather plump – considering how she looked the last time I saw her”  
“Was she starved the last time?” Arthur asked with a frown, knowing that Veronica saw her last when she along with the Courier’s other friends had tried to rescue her from the Legion stronghold on the Nevadan border.  
“No, but she was pregnant. Very pregnant, and perhaps it took a lot of strength from her being where she was and in that situation as well. She’s gained weight now, looks more healthy, except for the tiredness”  
Arthur hummed and nodded. “Well give her a physical to determine her health”

***

“Courier Six”, Cade said as the anonymous soldiers led her from her cell to another room several floors above, to what looked like a medical clinic.  
“Aurelia”, she said hoarsely.  
“You prefer to go by that name?” Cade asked with a raised brow.  
“It’s my name”, she said and looked into his brown eyes and Cade nodded.  
“Please have a seat, I’ve been ordered by the Elder to give you a physical”  
“I don’t need one. I’ve received medical attention regularly for the past four years, I’m perfectly fine and in good health”, Aurelia said without sitting down.  
“The Legion’s medical standard is nowhere near the one we provide here in the Citadel”, Cade said with narrowed eyes.  
Aurelia shrugged, “Perhaps not for regular citizens, no”, she said.  
“I can assure you that the care you were provided with still is inferior to what we have, so please, Aurelia, sit”  
Aurelia frowned and wrung her arms from the soldiers who still held her, staring defiantly at the Brotherhood medic before trying to cover herself up with the now ratty pieces that was still left of her dress.  
“What gives you the nerve?” she snarled and crossed her arms tightly over her chest.  
Cade looked up as he almost took a step back from surprise, “Excuse me?” he huffed, putting his chart down on the table beside him.  
Aurelia’s eyes were still pinned at him, looking more than a little hostile as she spoke in her raspy voice, “I was given medical care by one of the remnants of the Enclave. I know you have history with them and therefore, you should know that their knowledge is well beyond your own knowledge”, she spat and Cade twitched.  
“A remnant of the Enclave?” he almost whispered and Aurelia remained silent for more than a moment, simply staring at the physician before her.  
“He concluded that I’m in perfect health”, she insisted.  
Cade nodded in some kind of unbelieving understanding, before drawing a deep breath and looking intently at Aurelia again, “I still have my orders though. Please, sit down and pull the top of your dress down”  
“No”, Aurelia said.  
“I will have to force you if you don’t comply”, Cade looked as if he was starting to become visibly annoyed.  
“No”, she said again, still holding her arms over her chest tightly.  
“I don’t wish to repeat myself”, Cade took a step closer towards her and Aurelia took a step back, almost walking into one of the soldiers still present behind her.  
“I am not allowed to undress in front of unknown men”, she said.  
“I doubt the Elder cares much about your strange customs”, Cade said and took another step towards her.  
Aurelia looked at him with annoyed defiance, pressing her lips together and still holding her chin up high, but as Cade closed in on her and she started feeling all the more trapped between the medic and the soldiers behind her. She sighed and unclasped the brooch holding the fabric up over her body and at once, all of it fell to the floor and she stood stark naked in front of the doctor.  
“Go ahead then, profligate whore”, she said without emotion, staring directly into Cade’s eyes, “You’ll die by my husband’s hands in any case”  
“I very much doubt that”, Cade said dryly.

Aurelia didn’t doubt it, however. The Brotherhood was boisterous, relying too much on their technology to understand the threat of the Legion. They believed they would easily outmaneuver the Legion with its primitive warfare, but if the NCR couldn’t stand against them, then why would this small organization succeed where they had failed? Yes, they had powerful high technological weapons, she knew that – but so did the Legion, though they kept it hidden behind a show of only having howitzers as their most powerful weapons.  
That was far from the truth and Aurelia knew it full well, though she didn’t know anything more than that. Vulpes seldom told her much at all about what they actually had at their disposal, but she knew that Lucius was very good at providing the Legion with powerful machinery, updating them to suit the type of warfare they expected. It was what had made the Legion a threat to begin with, other fractions always underestimating them due to their high number of melee fighters and legionaries. It was effective, letting their enemies believe they could fight them, not realizing the terror of an actual assault and invasion from the Legion and what that would mean for those not killed.  
Aurelia smiled as Cade squeezed and tucked on her body. His fingers tracing her in a too intimate way, too closely than what was necessary as he listened to her breathing, asking her to cough and cleared her throat. Aurelia had known many men over her years, she knew the difference between legion men and those who lived under the ignorant belief that they were better, for letting females fight, letting females have what they viewed as a _freedom_. But it was wrong, it was all wrong and the freedom they felt such a deep pride towards, were nothing but an illusion. The profligates lived under the assumption their society was better, more equal. But she had seen both sides and she knew where she belonged. She knew neither could fulfill what they promised. The only one that came even close, was the dictatorship ruled by Caesar.  
She couldn’t help but to smile.

***

To Vulpes Inculta,   
It is never wise to provoke those in power of your destruction. If your Legion will not submit to our demands, stabilizing your region by peaceful means, you leave us no choice but to act.  
I can also tell you that Courier Six is safe within our custody. I request that you attend a diplomatic meeting provided by us with yourself and your neighboring states on August 23rd, 2286.  
**Prime Elder, Arthur Maxson**

Vulpes felt his eyes twitch as he sat leaned back in his chair holding the second fucking piece of paper the boisterous pleb calling himself ‘Elder’ had sent him. Instead of giving in to his impulses of letting his temper loose, he contained the anger within him, taking a deep breath and gave Graham the letter.  
Joshua looked over the letter quickly, his eyes moving back and forth in a rapid pace before he put the letter down on the table separating the two men.  
“I suppose this means the Legion will attend its first diplomatic gathering?” Joshua said with a raised eyebrow. “Aurelia will remain unhurt and it’s by far the easiest way to have her brought back West”  
“Yes”, Vulpes nodded. “I do not see what they wish to obtain by holding these inane meetings”  
Joshua shrugged and fingered the desk before him, tracing the wood with the tip of his fingers, one of the few places on his body not covered in bandages. “I suppose they know no other way to deal with each other. Supposedly, it’s a democratic thought, trying to talk before moving on to brute force”  
“It’s a charade, weak and useless and it’s wasting our time”, Vulpes hummed with an annoyed frown darkening his eyes. “But it’s also completely unnecessary and a waste of our recourses to start a war if we can get Aurelia back by attending a meeting. I’m not apposed to flattening the entire Brotherhood to the ground, but that requires more time, more planning and organizing. However, simply agreeing to this meeting also seems a hastened decision as I suspect that they’ll try to assassinate me first thing when I step into their meeting”  
“Hm”, Joshua thought for a moment. “I’m not sure they would, actually”  
Vulpes looked at him with those icy, penetrating eyes that seemed to be able to see through anything, always calculating, always cunning.  
“The Brotherhood is not cunning like that, you bring too much of your own actions into thinking about how they would handle things. They are, first and foremost a rather simple organization, pretending to abide by old democratic notions of some long obsolete moral code. They won’t kill you, or at least, I highly doubt it”  
“We should send some Frumentarii to the Citadel, to begin with”, Vulpes nodded slowly, biting his lower lip in thought, before sinking back deeper into his chair, spreading his legs further under the table.  
“That would be wise to begin with. In either case, whether or not you decide to go, send Frumentarii both to the Citadel and wherever they plan to hold these talks”, Joshua mused, looking thoughtful. “It wouldn’t hurt to infiltrate their precious peace talks”  
“No, it wouldn’t”, Vulpes said with an exasperated sigh.

Vulpes knew he had to deal with this sooner rather than later. Aurelia was… Well, he wouldn’t say she was weak, not dimwitted in any way, but he still couldn’t trust that she remained utterly and completely loyal to him. She had been indoctrinated, both before the bullets penetrated her head and after – but she had still caused him enough trouble over the years with her fucking foolish notion of do as _she_ pleased. What secrets did she really know? He hadn’t told her much, considering she was what she was. A simple woman, untrustworthy and when it came down to it, mother of his sons or not, a whore. She had been behaving the last couple of years, remaining with him and _acting_ the good little wife that she was, but how much of that was real, and how much was simply a show, waiting for him to become comfortable? To loose his touch? Aurelia should know him better than that. Vulpes never got _comfortable_ , and he would certainly never allow for her to really do as she pleased. 

Whatever fuckery she had been up to since she had been snatched, he would be able to del with it. The question was only _how_.  
His legionaries wasn’t properly ready for a full on war – they would be soon, if it came to that. He still had a few choices however, as to how he could sate the building hunger for revenge and violence that rose within him by the second as he sat there, going over the situation in his mind. He was done with the Brotherhood, even though the provocation had been worth it. It did annoy him that they had been able to snatch his wife away – he would even go as far as finding it infuriating. But the praetorian’s who had failed to keep her safe, had been killed by her kidnappers and instead, he punished their superior, letting Lucius take care of the matter. Such flat handedness could not and would not be tolerated. But, such things happened. Vulpes supposed he should be glad they hadn’t fucking taken his sons. That would have been cause enough for a destruction of apocalyptic dimensions – taking his flesh and blood would have made him stop at nothing to get them back, the whole world may burn again, he wouldn’t care. Aurelia, however. Well, she did have a history of… Disappearing, didn’t she?  
“Stupid cunt”, Vulpes muttered to himself and Joshua looked up at him, probably frowning under his bandages, but he remained silent and soon returned his gaze down to the heap of papers he was sieving through. 

Diplomacy, how did one conduct such things in any case? Acting was not a problem for Vulpes, he could conduct himself in almost any kind of company – he just needed to decide how this should play out. Planning for every detail was momentous, even the way he dressed. He knew how he was supposed to dress in New Vegas and in Shady Sands, but in Washington DC, he suspected their dress-code was somewhat different from the old west and no matter his former actions, he needed to appear to be serious and less of a…Bloodthirsty tyrant. The cultural differences between the states outside of Legion hold, with their pre-war clothes and democratic notions of freedom, were unimaginable. Vulpes knew very well how non-Legion people considered their clothing strange and associated them with death, massacres and values that, rightly so, scared them. The reason they wore armor and colors reminiscent of the Empire of old, were that due to the climate in Utah, Arizona and Nevada, they were practical. They were also practical for the kind of warfare the Legion conducted, as well as being very successful in spreading fear.  
A simple slim suit would have to do, he could have one of the tailors fit it properly as well as sew a new white dress shirt for him, polished shoes – the whole pre-war fuckery, only to blend in as properly as possible. It was possible they expected him to waltz in to the meeting in a full imperial get-up, it would be impressive, yes, but not very useful. Not then. There would be a glorious repeat of when they took New Vegas and Shady Sands, legionaries in red, splattered with the blood of the enemy marching and taking what the Gods had given them, but they weren’t there yet. At least this, was a start. 

As Vulpes sat in his chair, going over every detail in his mind, he watched Graham sitting across from him, reading through heap after heap of documents. He didn’t fully trust Graham as of yet, but he had proved some loyalty and it gave Vulpes a sought after feeling of security to have the former legate close, to give advice and again, work with the Legion. He was one of its funders, after all. Graham was still a deluded fuck, keeping his strange and obsolete faith, but he did prove useful. Vulpes had always seen it as a great shame to have the legate disgraced and executed, but he had stood by Caesar in his decision. Now, Vulpes was Caesar and his decision was to keep Graham close, eventually, his loyalties would show and Vulpes would do what was necessary, if ever needed. 

We will attend. My advisor the Malpais Legate and Legate Alerio will be attending the meeting alongside me, as well as five praetorian guards.   
**Caesar Vulpes Inculta, Imperatorem Legionis**

“Have it sent to Washington DC, fast, by Courier”, Vulpes said and gave one of his guards the letter he had addressed to Arthur Maxson.  
“Right away, Imperator”, he guard nodded and walked off quickly.

***


	8. Seeing Red

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are nearing the end.   
> I didn't want to completely abandon this fic, but I'm afraid I've been stuck on it for too long and it bugs me that I can't seem to properly finish it. Therefore, I decided to short this third part of the series down somewhat, so that I could give you all a proper end.

All of it happened so fast, Aurelia hardly had any time to react. She’d been kept locked away by the Brotherhood and then they brought her to the large barge that was Rivet City. A whole city inside a pre-war ship. It was one of the strangest things she’d seen in her life, at least from what she could remember.   
All of a sudden, the space around her was filled with bullets, flying with immense power and force, blood splattering and shouts, orders and panic, all closed inside thick metal walls. The Brotherhood soldiers held her in tight grips, and even though one of them fell to the floor from the bullets and brought Aurelia with him down, the other one didn’t let go. She was treated like a POV, her wrists bound behind her back and clothed in uncomfortable pre-war clothing. She didn’t really see anything, things just seemed to happen all on its own, as she tried first to keep her legs steady, but when the Brotherhood soldier crashed into the ground, she was incapable of holding herself up and keep from being pulled down. She shrieked and felt hard, metal clad hands grasp her. Her head whipped around in panic, where was Vulpes? Was he dead? What the _hell_ had just happened? 

Automatic fire kept going off and somewhere in the background of all the screams and shouts and pained cries, she thought she heard the sawing noise of a ripper slashing through flesh, gutting and cutting its way through anything it met. She tried to find the source of the noise, but just as she thought she could see someone who looked a lot like Alerio, someone pulled her by her legs and dragged her away.   
“Get cover!” someone shouted and bullets hit glass, the splinters flying everywhere and in almost a fully roused panic, Aurelia tried to kick her legs loose, but the grip was too strong.   
She tried to turn, and came eye to eye with _that_ man. The one who had taken her. He smirked at her, before he tugged hard on her legs, pulling her along the floor, out of the room.   
“Let go of me!” Aurelia shouted, trying to aim her foot towards his knees, or even better – his crotch. “I’ll fucking die if you don’t let me go!”   
“You’ll die either way”, he said and picked her up by her collar, as if she weighed no more than a ragdoll, then he threw her over his shoulder and quickly left the room. 

It had been a meeting of sorts. The Brotherhood hadn’t told her much, but she understood enough to know that it was some sort of try to get the Empire to agree to talk with the rest of the states and nations. Aurelia couldn’t imagine why they even wanted to try. Vulpes would never just talk. Not when it came to politics and expanding his territories. Talk, did nothing to warfare and the success of it. 

She had been brought into a large room where Brotherhood guards and soldiers stood guarding every goddamned corner. The room had a stage and beneath it, were several large tables, and she soon understood that each table represented a nation or state. All the tables were filled, except for one – the Legion’s table stood hauntingly empty and Aurelia couldn’t quite decide if she was to be sad or angry. But then a proctor she didn’t recognized cleared his throat and spoke into a pre-war looking thing that made his voice sound as if he was on the radio. A large door opened and two legionaries walked in, but they didn’t at all _look_ like legionaries. She recognized them from the insignia, a golden bull on a crimson background, that they wore on their chests. They were dressed in dark suits and looked unarmed. After them, a man wearing a bullet-proof vest, denims and a white shirt walked in. Aurelia couldn’t believe her eyes, but he was completely covered in bandages. That must, for some reason she didn’t yet understand, be Joshua Graham, she thought to herself. After him, Vulpes walked alongside Alerio, talking silently.   
Vulpes gaze was steady and he was clad in a slim, black suit. It made him look like he had done in New Vegas, but even more well-dressed, completely devoid from the depraved gambler-look he had had then. Now, he simply looked sharp and his eyes pierced everything they fell on with his usual almost manically iciness. His skin was pale and his dark hair pulled back, his lips drawn into a sneer of disgust as he flickered his hand at something Alerio said quietly.   
“The Emperor of the Legion, the Western Empire”, the proctor drawled, “Caesar Vulpes Inculta, along with his legates, Joshua Graham and Alerio Quietam” 

Vulpes didn’t look at either the proctor or anyone else as he strode over to the empty table and sat down casually, leaning back with arrogance in his chair. The man who had to be Joshua Graham sat down beside Vulpes, as did Alerio. Both Joshua and Alerio, however, looked intently at Aurelia, and then at Maxson who stood just a few feet from her with a deep frown on his features. 

Vulpes remained quiet during most of the meeting, Maxson throwing accusations in droves their way, but only Joshua answered some of their allegations or questions. Vulpes sat down, looking mildly bored with his head leaned on one of his fists and his ankle resting over his knee. It was first after one hour, that Aurelia noticed he was looking straight at her. His eyes stony and devoid of emotion, as he stared at her. Those pale icy eyes boring into her whole being and she just wanted to _run to him_.   
“I wish to speak with my husband”, Aurelia said before thinking and the whole room quieted down. She turned her head to Maxson, who was now looking at her with surprise in his eyes.   
“No”, he said after a moment, frowning his bushy brows deep.   
“He is my husband”, she said and took a deep breath, “You have no right to deny me a minute with him”   
“It’s out of the question”, Maxson’s hand cut through the air in a hefty gesture.   
“According to whose law?” Joshua Graham had stood up, directing his question towards Maxson and the stage.   
“The Brotherhood”, Maxson’s voice went low and vibrating from anger as he spoke.   
“A law the Empire does not recognize”, Joshua said in a calm and eloquent tone. “You organization refuses to recognize our laws, but still you insist on forcing us to attend these meetings, using our Caesar’s property as a bargain. The stakes of hilted, and there must be declared as unreasonable. It is easy enough to interpret this whole affair as a declaration of war”  
“You misunderstand me, Legate”, Maxson said, pointing towards the table where Joshua stood, next to Vulpes, who still hadn’t let Aurelia go with his eyes. “We wish-“  
“We are indifferent to your wishes”, Vulpes broke their eye contact and looked at Maxson as he spoke for the first time during the entire meeting. “As are we indifferent to your accusations, as we do not recognize them as any crime. What has been done during time of war, has its own laws and _you_ do not instigate those laws, nor do you have any claim on our Empire. This meeting is a feeble attempt at trying to contain a superior culture, this is your last resort. I have come here to watch you kill my woman in front of my eyes. Now, do just so, dog”   
“You can’t be serious”, an older man from another one of the nations stood up and looked at Vulpes with incredulous eyes, “If this truly is your wife, how even _can_ you?”   
Vulpes didn’t look at the elderly man, instead he kept his eyes on Maxson, who stood still. “Yet another proof of the Legion’s bestiality”, he roared for all to hear. “This woman”, Maxson said and pointed at Aurelia, “Is the mother of your children, the now infamous Courier Six. Is she not the Empress of your Empire?” 

Vulpes smirked whilst chuckling slightly, Aurelia thought that she for a moment could see his upper lip twitch slightly, but she might have been wrong. “What you do not understand, profligate”, Vulpes said ranked a hand through his hair, “She’s neither”   
“What?!” Maxson bit out, his eyes widening before he shot Aurelia a query look of disdain. Aurelia looked back at him with a expressionless face.   
“ _Kill her_ ”, Vulpes seethed through his teeth. 

Maxson looked more than a little confused as he stared into Aurelia’s large blue eyes, as if asking her if Vulpes was telling the truth and he wanted her dead. “Courier Six”, he said after another moment, looking at her, “He says you’re neither”   
“Yes”, she answered.   
“And?” Maxson asked, “Does it really not matter if I kill you?”   
“That’s absurd!” Veronica burst out, hardly able to contain herself further away on the stage.   
“It doesn’t matter”, Aurelia said. “Because you lack the understanding of it as a whole and it would be more humane for you to just do as he says”   
Maxson shook his head, “I-“, he frowned, “ _How?_ ”   
“A woman”, Vulpes said in his slivery voice, amusement covering his face, “Has no worth” 

“Could someone erase these fucking bastards from the face of the earth, or what?” A younger male from another nation shouted from where he sat at a table.   
“I’m _not_ going to kill her”, Maxson said with his hands lifted.   
Vulpes shrugged, “Well then”, he said, breathing out, “It matters not to me” 

That _shrug_ was in reality what started the pandemonium that broke out inside the room, which eventually led to Aurelia being dragged out by the Lone Wanderer, whilst the people gathered inside was trying their best to kill each other. 

The Lone Wanderer, however, didn’t make it all that far with Aurelia over his shoulder. He was knocked down to his knees just before he reached the long bridge that lead away from the large ship, and Aurelia was pulled from him. Then, Vulpes sawed his head straight off with his ripper, before throwing it to Alerio.   
“Keep it, I want it on a pike”, Vulpes said before he gesticulated for one of his guards to grab Aurelia. 

That’s when she really fainted.

***


	9. The Road to Home

Holy water  
Or is it Devils blood?  
Live or die, you'll drink with me  
You're the Devils daughter  
I am the good lords son  
Live or die you'll drown with me

Oh the western sun  
I've seen the devil come  
I've seen lord Jesus run  
Don't you run from me  
\- King Dude ‘Holy Water’

***

When Aurelia woke up, it felt like she was floating. Floating through air and her ears ached from the loud and overpowering sound of engines, making her ears pop. What had happened? Where was she?  
She tried to gaze around, but at first, it was all too blurred for her to be able to make out what she actually saw. As she came to, she realized, she was on a vertibird.  
“Vulpes?” she croaked, her eyes unsteady and her eyes wanting to roll back into her head, but she tried to focus. “Vulp-“  
Someone pulled her up and drew her close, an arm circling around her waist and holding her steady. She tried to look up, but her eyes didn’t want to focus enough, but she could recognize the scent she felt from the person. It was him, it really was _him_. She reached out and gripped his blazer, holding herself up close as she tried to gain a grip on what had happened.  
“It’s alright, Aurelia”, his velvety voice whispered soothing. She could hardly hear it over the sounds of the engine, but it was enough to just hear him. Know that she was away from the Brotherhood and on her way home. On her way back to her babies, to her family.  
Vulpes said nothing more, but he kept holding her close during the entirety of the flight taking them west. Aurelia’s eyes soon began to adjust and the faintness she had felt when she first woke up, was soon gone and she could breathe out again, relaxing completely.

She was so tired, her body aching as she was guided out of the vertibird on an abandoned field just outside of Flagstaff. Vulpes guided her with a hand on the small of her back, and after a boat-ride up the canal, she was soon back home. But her home, was deserted, her boys weren’t there and neither were any of their slaves. As Vulpes closed the door behind them, everything fell into an empty, but thick and uneasy silence. Aurelia tried to look around, noting, if anything was different. She hadn’t been gone for too long, but it felt as if things were different from how it had been before. Like something in the air had shifted.  
She turned around, looking at Vulpes and about to say something, when she noticed his pale eyes, normally icy and piercing, but still with a strange calm in them – were instead dark – as if burning with a shining lightness. 

“Where are our boys?” she asked in a low voice, careful not to overstep her boundaries, to not agitate her husband more than she could very easily see that he indeed was.  
“They are secure”, he said.  
“The slaves?” she asked, biting her lower lip, hesitating.  
“Away” 

Aurelia nodded carefully as she stood, lightly gripping her fingers, waiting – not really knowing what she was to do.  
She wasn’t filthy, but she wanted to change her clothes, have a bath. But Vulpes’ face twitched and she knew all too well what that twitching meant. If she wasn’t careful, if she didn’t handle his mood in the right kind of way – she might pay too large a prize for her actions.  
Was he suspicious of her? Did he believe she had relayed information to the Brotherhood? She wouldn’t – and hadn’t. She knew, that he knew, that she didn’t know anything of value. She couldn’t have _told_ them anything, and yet, he looked at her with _that_ look in his eyes. Like she had, like she lied – and Aurelia almost felt as if she in fact _had_ lied, even though she knew it was not so.  
“May I take a bath?” she finally asked and Vulpes took the few steps left before he stood in front of her and looked down into her dark blue eyes. His hand reached up and lightly touched her curling hair, sweeping it back over one of her shoulders. His cold fingers touching her skin softly, making her shiver. She didn’t know if it was a good kind of shiver, or a bad one. She couldn’t decide, couldn’t possibly make it out.  
“Of course”, he said, leaning down and pressing his lips to hers. Aurelia almost melted against him, grasping his sides as she leaned in to him, answering his kisses in kind.  
When he drew back, she loosened her hold on him, taking a step back as well and looked at him. He still was, probably, the most beautiful man she’d ever laid eyes on. Strangely, for someone having worked their way up in such a violent surrounding as the Legion, he had very few scars. He had the ones on his back, but other than those? His skin was pale and soft, free from many of the small cuts and scar tissue most gathered during their years as soldiers. And still, he had fought. He had been a frumentarius for a long time, but that didn’t mean he didn’t fight – didn’t make the same kind of physical sacrifices a soldier did – a legionary. 

She did her best to shrug off the strange feeling she carried with her since she had woken up on the vertibird when she walked up the stairs, leaving Vulpes downstairs. Somehow, it felt much more like some kind of goodbye, instead of her going to take a bath. It was a grueling feeling she had inside her, as she sank down into the tub, letting out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding in. She leaned her head back, expecting Vulpes to soon join her, but as time ticked on, she remained alone.

***

Being a good leader took sacrifices. He knew that well enough. Sacrifices he’d ignored up until now, but no longer could ignore. _They_ had been able to kidnap her, in the middle of the day, _inside_ the Empire’s territory, in their capital, no less. How had it even been possible?  
It was too late now. She had been polluted enough. That woman, was no longer his wife. She was no longer the woman she’d once been. He’d known it for some time, but hadn’t wanted to admit it to himself.  
She wasn’t just a simple whore, begging for her life with her cunt. No. She’d given life, given his sons life – in that way she’d given _him_ life. But she kept fucking messing it up, kept getting into trouble. Perhaps it was simply her nature? He couldn’t know. It finally felt like he didn’t even care anymore. He’d spent so much time, to protect her, to make sure she stayed pure. But, what had she done?

Vulpes shook his head as he burned the powdered herbs, inhaling the smoke rising from them, clearing his mind and filling him with a confident feeling. He felt the twitches in his face ease as he slowly breathed out.  
Then he turned around and walked up the stairs. 

__

__

***

Oh, the western sun  
I’ve seen the devil come

Something, was wrong. She knew. She felt it so deep within her, she had no doubts left. As she stood in their bedroom, drying herself off from her bath, she looked around in the dimly lit room. It all felt as if it wasn’t supposed to be. It felt wrong, diffused and empty. Like a vacuum had taken over her completely and left her emotionless. Would she even dare to go to bed?  
Would she wake up the next day?  
She had lived along this violent man for years on years now. She didn’t remember everything they had been through, but she knew him. She knew him all too well, and this vacuum, it confused her. It made her hesitant, more so than usual. Had he finally killed their children? His heirs?  
Had he finally, finally gone mad? Stepped over than thin line from a mild madness into insanity? 

She dug up a small knife, hidden in a drawer and stuck it in between the mattresses before she lay down, tucking herself in for the night. Vulpes still roamed around downstairs, what he was doing, she didn’t know. It was still just the two of them home and no slaves had arrived at all. When he didn’t come up, she eventually fell asleep, from exhaustion. Her body failing her mind and folding itself in on her, the darkness lulling her to sleep, weary and heavy from everything. From the vacuum sucking up all the essence she’d used just to survive – to keep living. Keep going. 

When she woke up, two hands clasped her throat hard, hindering her from breathing and panic struck down on her like lightning. Lightning as pale and flashing as the fury in Vulpes’ eyes that looked down on her. A fury, drenched in sorrow and suffering – she could smell it on him, on his skin as she started to kick against him, trying to shove him off of her. He sat astride her, pushing all his weight down on her throat. She wanted to cough, trying to suck air into her lungs, but his hold around her throat didn’t bulge.  
In the middle of the panic, she remembered her knife and she reached down, quickly – accidentally grasping the sharp end of it, cutting her hand badly. But eventually, she got a hold on the hilt. Her grip was wet from her blood, but with one hard push, she shoved the knife into Vulpes’ still clad side and his grip around her throat loosened. He recoiled, staring down at the knife hilted in his side and then he looked at her, his eyes burning with anger and madness.  
Aurelia coughed, gripping her throat as she tried to roll away from him. She came half-way down from the bed onto the floor, before a hand gripped her ankle and a sharp stab pierced her shin. She screamed, her vocal chords burning from pain, as she coughed and tried to just breathe. She was pulled back up into the bed and a sharp knuckle met her cheekbone as Vulpes loomed over her. She punched him back, getting his nose.  
He still held the knife in his hand and she started to try and wrestle it out of his hand, pictures of her sons covering her sight as she fought against their father.  
“ _Stop_ ” she tried to croak, but it came out more like a whine, her throat feeling broken and so sore. Every breath she took was a struggle.  
The bloodied and slippery knife came out from his hand and Aurelia threw herself at it, able to grip it again as she shoved it into his chest, two, three, four times. He snarled, blood spitting from his lips as he gripped her throat, pressing down with all he had left inside him. The knife pierced his chest and with all her power, she turned it and he screamed. She felt something break within him and she pressed even harder, as her sight began to fade out. Her lungs had no more air left and she was beginning to feel cold, her fingers numb and the blood and saliva dripping down on her from his mouth chilled her even further.  
She struggled to pull in air, but nothing came in. She coughed, but it didn’t help. Her chest heaved up and down, but it was futile. It wouldn’t help.  
The last thing she saw, was her sons. She could feel Vulpes’ weight over her, how he finally collapsed over her. She saw him, carrying atticus, playing with him in a green garden. It was years ago, a fond memory, something she’d saved within herself. She felt thankful for her mind, projecting that as she realized, that this was it. This, was the end.

***

Aurelia, was dead.  
Vulpes, was dying. He was bleeding out and nothing any doctor or medic did, could make his stab wounds heal enough. No stimpaks, no nothing, helped. His internal bleeding was too large. They could only stave it off for some time, but the Imperator was dying.  
Joshua stood beside him, watching him in his comatose state, even more pale than he’d been before. His nose broken, claw marks covering his chest, shoulders and arms. He looked unreal, somehow – like a waxy doll, even as his chest still went up and down, slowly, with his every breath. With every intake of air, a gurgling sound came from him, as his lungs slowly filled with blood, but that was the only movement he made. He didn’t twitch, didn’t moan, didn’t make any signs. His brows were furrowed, that was the only thing that Joshua could see, aside from his chest rising and falling, that told him Vulpes was still alive.

Aurelia, had been covered in blood. Not her own. Vulpes’ blood had covered her naked body. She had been strangled, beaten, stabbed. _He_ had done that to her.  
Not that it mattered. 

The children.  
He hadn’t been able to do anything for Aurelia. He had failed. He had to admit that and ask for forgiveness for it. He had been too late, too late to save her from the clasps of Vulpes, of that _devil_. He should have done it years ago – instead of allowing her to be re-captured by him.  
Regrets. There were always regrets. Never enough of _something_ , always just that one detail not wanting to be altered, not allowing itself to be changed.  
But the children.  
They were Aurelia’s. Vulpes had no other family but her, and them. They would either go to the priestesses, or Aurelius of Phoenix. If Joshua didn’t leave with them _now_. He knew the location of the boys and he would have time. Time enough to bring them to Zion, to get a fair head start.  
What would happen to them if they grew up within the Legion? Vulpes had wanted them to succeed him in becoming Caesar, but he was in a minority in wanting the Legion’s highest throne to be hereditary. Eventually, since the boys were still so young, someone would try to kill them to get that power.  
The Legion valued strength, survival of the fittest and as children, they weren’t prepared to fight, not for many years. They would die. They would have to die, to prevent rebellions in the future.  
He needed to take them, smuggle them out as soon as possible. Give them a life, somewhere far away, somewhere the Legion didn’t yet reach.  
Aurelia murdering Vulpes, had halted them for some time and Lucius, Alerio or any of the other legates weren’t as bloodthirsty as Vulpes had been. Luckily, he had wiped most of the others out, those with the same thirst as himself.  
It would take the Legion some time to come back from his death, and all Joshua needed, was that little and confusion to get as far away as possible. 

Zion, almost devoid of Legion presence, what a start. A good start for hiding them, changing their lives for something better, giving them both a meaningful life with as little violence as possible. Far away from their father’s empire, or their broken mother’s futile attempts to give them some kind of meaningful existence. 

It wasn’t difficult to deduce that Aurelia had tried to kill Vulpes. It pained Joshua to think of what would happen to her body, what they would do to it. As if she hadn’t been humiliated enough during her life. But he couldn’t think about that now.  
Instead, he touched Vulpes’ cold hand one last time, before he sighed and walked out of the hospital room. He took one step after another, decisive and with a clenched jaw. Not that it showed under his bandages. He noted that his .45’ was on his hip as he walked towards the Temple of Mars and the priestesses. As a reinstated legate, it wasn’t difficult for him to be given the children.  
They fled during nightfall, the boys covered by fabrics and rags, making them look like slaves and not sons of a Caesar. During the early hours of the next morning, Joshua could breathe out for the first time – in a long time. Ferox was still too young to understand what had happened, but Atticus seemed to understand some of it. He asked questions. Questions Joshua didn’t answer. Not now.  
They would know.  
Eventually.

***

He woke up with a gasp that triggered a pain inside him, tearing through his entire being. Everything inside him hurt and all he could see around him was clinical – soft lights from the oil lamps shining. He was in a bed. Not at home. He tried to look around, but moving his head hurt too much.  
She wasn’t here. Aurelia, she wasn’t here. She’d been here the last time he’d been so hurt he ended up in the Imperial hospital. She’d taken care of him, cared for him, made sure the wounds from the capped whip didn’t fester. She’d sat there with her dark curling hair and large blue eyes, looking tenderly at him as she cared for him.  
He’d known then.  
Just as he knew now.  
He realized, with an itch blending with the dire pain all over his skin, an itch, like poison ivy.

***

**END**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading. It's been a long road and I've been thinking and considering what to do with this story.  
> In the end, I realized it was best to give both Vulpes and Aurelia an end. The world around them goes on, and we all know the Brotherhood moving in on the Commonwealth eventually. What happens with Arcade and all the others, well, who knows?


End file.
